New Foil Timings: an Italian Proposal

[gladius]

Following from the Italian fencing federation (FIS) website http://www.federscherma.it/news.asp?24042

NEW FOIL TIMINGS: THE PRESIDENT GIORGIO SCARSO ASKS THE FIE FOR CHANGES
2/28/2005 Rome - It is well known that the FIE recently changed the rules for the electric timing in foil. The changes to the signaling system are as follows:
impact time, both for a valid touch and for a non valid touch: between 13 and 15 milliseconds;
time for the double touch: between 275 and 325 milliseconds.

The old timings, before this change, were respectively, between 1 and 5 milliseconds for the impact of the valid touch, and between 2 and 10 ms for the non valid touch; the time for the double touch was between 700 and 800 ms.

The new calibration of the scoring machines has provoked both criticism and bewilderment in the foil world which have culminated this past weekend in the Seoul episode where the German foilists launched an astonishing protest in the presence of the President of the FIE, Rene Roch, by fencing just to one touch in the semifinals and final bouts of the World Cup event.

On this hot topic the President of the FIS, Giorgio Scarso - newly elected on Saturday, February 26 - sent today an official letter to the President of the FIE Rene Roch, cc the EC of the FIE, and the Technical director Joan Pop. Hereunder is the text of the letter written by the President of the FIS Giorgio Scarso:

"The Italian Fencing Federation wishes to enter the debate about the timings for the registration of the touches in foil. This is not to follow on the polemics which we heard in the World Cup environment, or the protest of the German foilists in Seoul, but it is done with a spirit of collaboration and with technical know-how.

We already sent Mr. Pop (November 6, 2004) the results of our experiments in women's foil, which were then followed by men's foil, given the greater speed and power of men's foilists. Therefore, as a first official act, at the international level, as the new President of the Italian Federation, I ask you to put on the agenda of the next meeting of the EC of the FIE our request for a partial modification of the impact times in signaling the touches in foil, which we propose to bring from 15 (13/15) to 10 (8/10) ms.

This letter is followed by a detailed report of the SEMI Commission of the FIS which gives the support from the technical point of view to our proposal, with particular emphasis on the problem of the 'microinterruptions in the signaling boxes.'

We believe that the optimization of the recording of the touches correctly executed will facilitate the application of the convention in fencing, and help produce a fencing event [foil] with a greater appeal for the spectators."

Now we are all waiting for Roch's response

[Gav]

You see this is the sort of constructive approach that may work. If you make an approach to the FIE, ask that they hear your case and try to enter into dialogue then you have made a decent attempt at getting your case heard. I'd like to see [in English, as I have no Italian language skills] the assesment alluded to in this letter. If anyone would like to translate a copy and post it then I'd be grateful.

[ThatReallyHurt]

Originally Posted by Gav

You see this is the sort of constructive approach that may work.

Hear, hear. I couldn't have said it any better.

[gladius]

Originally Posted by Gav

You see this is the sort of constructive approach that may work. If you make an approach to the FIE, ask that they hear your case and try to enter into dialogue then you have made a decent attempt at getting your case heard. I'd like to see [in English, as I have no Italian language skills] the assesment alluded to in this letter. If anyone would like to translate a copy and post it then I'd be grateful.

Gav, I assume you refer to the official report sent to Mr. Pop by the SEMI Commission of the FIS or the attached Technical Report to the letter. I don't think they are available to the public, but if you or anyone else has it, I'll be glad to translate it.

Notice also that Italy is not a member of the EC of the FIE because Roch wanted to extend the privilege to Senegal and Qatar, I believe... Politics and bickering all the time. No wonder the German foil fencers decided to stage the protest under Roch's nose in Seoul!

[Epeecurean]

So the Italians seem to approve of the shorter lock-out time then and would like to just tweak the contact time down from 13/15ms to 8/10ms.

Are you reading this Alan, even the Italians are accepting the bulk of the changes, the old timings are certainly dead!

[edew]

Rather than have one federation or another decide what's best for all fencers (I'm sure if I'm doing all the testing, I might be tempted to see what would work and then start training my fencers on that...but that's only a temptation).

I think there should be a combination of intent, technology, and sportsmanship blended together to set the value. Maybe the correct range should be 6.7ms - 8.5ms. Or whatever.

The intent is how the scoring machine should deal with the spirit of the sport. What exactly should the scoring machine be looking for, and then, how should it be displayed. Square-on hits should register, no matter how short the debounce time, right? Well, if square-on hits never bounce off in less than 6ms, then 6ms should be the bottom line.

Technology is, well, the technical aspects of the scoring machine, the foil tip, the level of resistance, etc.

And sportsmanship means how it will be viewed as part of the game. How might fencers exploit the rules, what are some of the unintended consequences and would they diminish or enhance the sport? For example, the flick is, to a degree, an unintended consequence of the electronic technology. I personally think it enhanced the sport. Some might say otherwise. The 15ms debounce time has certainly diminished the sport.

Let's see the actual report and the testing method to make a better judgement on the Italian proposal.

I'd personally take 100 fencers, 50 male, 50 female, of all calibers from top-10 in the world to club fencers (we can ignore the novice-novice fencers, as their problems are unique to their status), make them do attacks of various sorts: straight attacks, beat attacks, angled attacks, chest flicks, back flicks, flicks to the flank, infighting hits, etc. And record the debounce-time. Find what comfortable range would suffice. I'd say 100,000 total hits (1000 hits by each fencer) would generate a decent statistical model.

[mrbiggs]

Maybe they should just take a large club with a very wide variety of fencing ability (novice to national, maybe. Perhaps 2 or 3 clubs), give them free machines with new test timings, and say "fence with these for two months. Tell us what you think". That way, there aren't any problems with controlled tests. I'm sure that many of the problems we're experiencing today just weren't observed in the initial FIE tests with the new timings. (I hope not, at least.) I'd guess that this is probably because the number of situations tested were limited to the imaginations of whoever was running the tests. And I'm sure they didn't say "okay, in this test, I want you to parry, then hit him as hard as you can in the chest, and see if it goes off." Yet people who hit hard in that situation are the ones having a hard time with the parries. So I think that a loose environment will make testing more accurate.

[edew]

I don't care what people think about a proposed debounce time. I want a debounce time set that makes technical, competitive, and historical sense.

At my club, all fencers are using the new timing and have zero experience with the old. To them, it's perfectly ok. People adapt to whatever is given to them. What we need to do is give people something that make logical and competitive sense.

[DanInMI]

Originally Posted by edew

At my club, all fencers are using the new timing and have zero experience with the old. To them, it's perfectly ok. People adapt to whatever is given to them. What we need to do is give people something that make logical and competitive sense.

Wow...very good point Eric!

[Gav]

Yes, it's those documents alluded to, in that article, that I would like to see translations of. I don't think that the Italian Federation is trying to dictate; it certainly seems as though they are looking at this contructively; if the documents were made public then we could all se where the Italians are coming from and react accordingly.

[MikeHarm]

Would this be 10 ms with or without the new anti flick points? 10 ms seems a pretty workable timing to me also. Does the 10 ms debounce weaken the chest plate bounce effect?

[cowpaste]

I don't think that 10[ms] will fix the chest plate problem. Chest plates cause glance off, which depress the tip for a shorter amount of time than many flicks!

My opinion is that they should not be looking to the depression times to try and eliminate flicks. Contact time of 10[ms] is still better than 15[ms] because I think there will be less occurances of "microinterruptions," but I'm guessing that many straight thrusts still will not work.

I really don't see why some people complain about the new lock-out times. I've watched some high level fencing under the old timings, and I don't think I've ever seen a valid riposte that arrived over 300[ms] after a remise.

[gladius]

Originally Posted by cowpaste

I don't think that 10[ms] will fix the chest plate problem. Chest plates cause glance off, which depress the tip for a shorter amount of time than many flicks!

My opinion is that they should not be looking to the depression times to try and eliminate flicks. Contact time of 10[ms] is still better than 15[ms] because I think there will be less occurances of "microinterruptions," but I'm guessing that many straight thrusts still will not work.
........

After reading the description of Cowpaste experiments and his observations, it would be great to compare them with what the Italians did and wrote in their report to Mr. Pop last November, and in the detailed technical report by the Italian SEMI commission sent to the FIE by the President of the FIS. Problem is that to get the Italians to respond and or cooperate with a "brilliant" outsider is next to impossible...

Reading between the lines of the Italian website - always a risky thing to do - I venture to say that the results of their experiments are gender specific, in that the new timings seem to affect men much more than women foilists. The 'proof' of this is that in Seoul the women foilists fenced the old-fashioned way to 15. No protest there. The alluded difference is the greater speed and power of men (at least in this case) reaching the limits of consistently measurable results with today's technology.

Again, reading between the lines of the Italian articles, I interpret that their main objection is NOT that the new rules handicap the Italian style of foil fencing (though this has been raised by many, including many Italians), but the INCONSISTENCY of the registering apparatus of obvious visible touches to the chest which some time register and other don't. This, I believe, is also proven in a 'lab environment' by Cowpaste experiments.