Referee excluded from Olympic Games

[usfafencer]

Did anyone else see the news report that Hildasi, the Hungarian referee for the Gold Medal Men's Team Foil match, was excluded for two years because he awarded points (5 pts) incorrectly.

What the heck is this about? I watched it on the stream and thought the refereeing was fine.

I have never, in 10 years of international fencing, heard of such a thing. Renee Roch is a psycho and god I hope he loses the next election.

[whtouche]

Clearly they only punish referees for mis-awarding touches when it hurts someone other than the americans...

[Tiptop]

[QUOTE=usfafencer]Did anyone else see the news report that Hildasi, the Hungarian referee for the Gold Medal Men's Team Foil match, was excluded for two years because he awarded points (5 pts) incorrectly.

Where have you found this information?

[usfafencer]

it's on the athens website under news..

[Agent_V]

http://english.people.com.cn/200408/...22_154176.html

and

http://www.athens2004.com/en/LatestN...002b130c0a____

[Army Fencer]

http://www.athens2004.com/en/LatestN...002b130c0a____

That article said 6 touches. It's not clear that the ref was biased one way or another. I think they would have reported that.

[C.J.]

Well, China has been, once again, robbed of the Gold Medal. It's like the curse of the New York Giants.

[Mihail]

Does anyone have footage of this? I would be hesitent to call Rene Roch insane, etc. since it was almost definitely a group of the best foil directors in the world that agreed the calls were wrong.

[C.J.]

What I remember was 2 parry repostes awarded incorrectly to China, and 4 attacks / simultaneous attacks awarded incorrectly to Italy.

Percentage-wise, this is within the tolerance of a normal foil team match(6 out of 90 touches). I am glad that the president of the FIE is doing something about it. But, I think, at this rate, all the FIE directors will be suspended sooner or later. Instead of suspending the directors, I think he should change the way directing is done: allowing Multiple directors to refee, the same as in boxing, kendo, Tae Kwo Do, could reduce this problem very effectively.

[Mihail]

I was thinking about that, and it might be a good idea. The main issue to address in that case is to ensure a swift and extremely quick method of communication between the directors.

[C.J.]

That's easy, you take the the majority of the calls.

[reposte]

I liked Kielpikowski's way of handling Italian instability - on - piste issues...

[Mihail]

That's easy, you take the the majority of the calls.

That's cool for the results, but would each ref have to explain the phrase? I guess the best choice would be for the ref representative (or the main ref) to explain only the version of the phrase that leads to the majority decision. It's not perfect, but I'm sure it can be improved in concept.

[edew]

What I remember was 2 parry repostes award incorrectly to China, and 4 simultaneous attacks awarded incorrectly to Italy.

Percentage-wise, this is within the tolerance of a normal foil team match(6 out of 90 touches). I am glad that the president of the FIE is doing something about it. But, I think at this rate, all the FIE directors will be suspended sooner or later. Instead of suspending the directors, I think he should change the way directing is done: allowing Multiple directors to refee, the same as in boxing, kendo, Tae Kwo Do, could reduce this problem very effectively.

That's only 90 possible point touches. There are many more off-target touches that aren't counted. There's no limit to the number of off-target touches, other than the time-restraint's limit. So, if fencer A has right of way, fencer B hits off and the call is for B, then it's off-target no point scored. That affects A because A should have scored but didn't. So, the percentage is even lower (possibly). Men's Foil fencers are generally pretty good at hitting on target. Women's foilists (even at the Olympic level) still seem to hit way too many off-targets. (I suspect that a good deal of that is due to the smaller target size some women have.)

Still, it's not the percentage or the number of errors. It's how egregious or obvious the error is. If it's clearly attack/counter-attack and the referee called it simultaneous, then there's clear case of incompetence or collusion.

[Fencing Mom]

Hey, before this turns into one of those endless refereeing threads - based on how I read the story, I think the errors were in how the touches were scored, not on how they were called. By that I mean it sounds like the ref said "touch right" but the point was accidently awarded to left.

If that is true - what incredible incompetence, at the Olympics, no less.

[Mihail]

Haha. I don't think that's a possibility. In high level competitions, the ref doesn't keep the score himself. And if the scorekeeper screwed up, I'm sure the arena full of teammates, coaches, fans, and spectators would speak up.

[Fencing Mom]

.

Hungarian wrongly awarded Italy points, possibly cost China gold
Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Aug. 22, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Fencing chiefs expelled a Hungarian referee from the Olympics and banned him for two years on Sunday after he miss-scored the men’s team foil final and possibly cost China the gold.

Joszef Hidasi wrongly awarded winners Italy six points instead of China who went on to lose 45-42 in Saturday’s gold medal decider, governing body (FIE) spokesman Jochen Faerber told Reuters on Sunday.

It was the second case of a points error involving medals at the Olympics. Errors in gymnastics scoring cost China’s Yang Tae-young a gold, which went to American Paul Hamm.

Faerber would not speculate on whether the miss-marking cost China the fencing gold, since Italy could have changed their tactics during the final to accommodate the marking.

Faerber said the FIE would not reallocate the medals and would not conduct an investigation for any foul play.

“Why? If we ask him if he took money and he says not, what can we do? We don’t have the authority to investigate his bank accounts. And we don’t have any evidence that there was anything wrong,” he said.

“We think this was incompetence. But this is surprising for one of the top referees in the world,” he said. “It is the first time that we have ever sanctioned a referee in this manner.”

Chinese Olympic Committee vice-president He Huixian expressed disappointment the result could not be overturned.

“China greatly regrets what happened yesterday in the fencing competition, but we welcome the fact that FIE recognized the errors in its ruling,” she said.

“Unfortunately, the outcome of the match cannot be reversed, so we remain disappointed. The Olympics come only once every four years and our fencing team put in years of rigorous training.

“China hopes the FIE will do its utmost to prevent cases like this in the future.”

Faerber said that the FIE had sent a letter of complaint to the Italian Federation over the unsporting behavior of their fencers during the match.

Earlier, the body said the referee had given points to the wrong fencer four times in the second bout of the gold medal final and twice in the fifth.

Italy’s Simone Vanni won the second bout 8-2 while Salvatore Sanzo, the individual silver medallist, won the fifth 5-2.

Vanni scored 20 points in total to help Italy secure their third fencing gold of the Games. But he also received a warning from the referee for feigning injury, although the Italian insisted he was hurt.

OKay, I know the ref doesn't mark the score himself, but I just couldn't believe that six bad calls were acknowledged. When is the last time that you ever heard of any bout committee, the Olympic committee no less, agreeing that there were six bad calls and punishing the referee because of it?

[noahz]

In the final round, we saw that Sanzo went completely off the strip during a rushing attack, then redouble for the touch, which was awarded. (i.e. he didn't score the touch as he left the strip, which should be allowed).

So the touch clearly should have been annulled. Did anybody else catch this one?

[mfp]

In the final round, we saw that Sanzo went completely off the strip during a rushing attack, then redouble for the touch, which was awarded. (i.e. he didn't score the touch as he left the strip, which should be allowed).

So the touch clearly should have been annulled. Did anybody else catch this one?

In the final round? The FIE reviewers apparently didn't agree with you.

The article quoted the FIE spokesperson as saying there were errors where points were awarded to the wrong fencer in the 2nd and 5th bouts, not the final/9th. Sanzo fenced in both the 5th and the 9th.

[mfp]

Then again, speaking of errors, the article posted above also included:

It was the second case of a points error involving medals at the Olympics. Errors in gymnastics scoring cost China’s Yang Tae-young a gold, which went to American Paul Hamm.

Yang Tae-young is from South Korea, not China.