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***Craig*** · 07-03-2002, 02:57 PM

Fencing News - June/July 2002

News from the FIE -
June 19, 2002:
A mixed team sabre event will be added as an official event at the Lisbon 2002 World Championships.

The FIE is adding one official sabre mixed team event (men/women) on August 23rd during the World Champs to test the mixed gender competition format. The winning team will receive a title and medal.

The mixed team event will be a relay with 2 men and 2 women on a team. The relay format will have the men fence men and the women fence the women. Each relay bout will be to 5 hits. The eight participating teams will qualify by the combined points of men's and women's FIE official team world ranking.

The 8 teams participating in the mixed sabre team event are (1) Hungary (2) Romania (3) Russia (4) France (5) Germany (6) Italy (7) United States (8) Ukraine.

It is believed that the FIE is including the mixed team event format not as a "trial" format, but as an offial medal event in this year's World Championships so that they can propose the use of a mixed team format to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) for future Olympic Games. The IOC originally rejected the idea of a mixed team format stating that the Olympic Games are not the venue to launch a "test" or "trial" event, but only for established events.

A mixed team format would have the effect of allowing the FIE to add a fencing individual event to the Olympic Games and still keep the overall medal count the same while preserving participation of all of the fencing disciplines.

Fencing.Net believes that while mixed team events are a neat idea, they would decrease the participation of athletes in the Games as the teams would be limited to 2 of each gender vs. the 3 on each team in the current formats. The alternatives being considered also do not do enough for fencing. Either way, this will be an interesting experiment. The view that the IOC and FIE should be taking is that this should not be viewed as a "zero sum game" but as an opportunity to expand and adapt fencing to increased participation. The idea that to add one discipline one must subtract another goes against the goals of inclusion that are so widely being trumpeted in the IOC's Olympic PR campaigns.

[ 07-06-2002, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: webmaster ]

veeco · 07-03-2002, 04:43 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by webmaster:
News from the FIE -
June 19, 2002:
Women's Sabre will be added as an additional event at the Lisbon 2002 World Championships.

<hr /></blockquote>Wasn't it already part of the world champs since 1996?
<blockquote>quote:<hr />

In addition, the FIE will add one official sabre mixed team event (men/women) on August 23rd during the World Champs to test the mixed gender competition format. The winning team will receive a title and medal.

The mixed team event will be a relay with 2 men and 2 women on a team. The relay format will have the men fence men and the women fence the women. Each relay bout will be to 5 hits. The eight participating teams will qualify by the combined points of men's and women's FIE official team world ranking.

Update - July 1, 2002.
The 8 teams participating in the mixed sabre team event are (1) Hungary (2) Romania (3) Russia (4) France (5) Germany (6) Italy (7) United States (8) Ukraine<hr /></blockquote>Looking forward to it! This should be an exciting event to watch!

edew · 07-03-2002, 05:31 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by veeco:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by webmaster:
News from the FIE -
June 19, 2002:
Women's Sabre will be added as an additional event at the Lisbon 2002 World Championships.

<hr /></blockquote>Wasn't it already part of the world champs since 1996?
<blockquote>quote:<hr />

In addition, the FIE will add one official sabre mixed team event (men/women) on August 23rd during the World Champs to test the mixed gender competition format. The winning team will receive a title and medal.

The mixed team event will be a relay with 2 men and 2 women on a team. The relay format will have the men fence men and the women fence the women. Each relay bout will be to 5 hits. The eight participating teams will qualify by the combined points of men's and women's FIE official team world ranking.

Update - July 1, 2002.
The 8 teams participating in the mixed sabre team event are (1) Hungary (2) Romania (3) Russia (4) France (5) Germany (6) Italy (7) United States (8) Ukraine<hr /></blockquote>Looking forward to it! This should be an exciting event to watch!<hr /></blockquote>It was an official event in the 2001 World Championships, it was an official World Championships event in 2000, and was only a trial event in 1999 (in Seoul). There were no team events then.

***Craig*** · 07-04-2002, 04:15 AM

Correcting the original post. Upon rereading the FIE version, it is the mixed team that is the additional event. The english translation that they have uses language that implies that the ws ind. was also an "additional" event, which I also found strange.

Craig

Shpaga · 07-05-2002, 09:59 AM

What is to stop the IOC from eventually demanding ALL fencing team events be co-gendered?

MikeHarm · 07-22-2002, 08:20 PM

I like having the mixed team, but I don't see why the women and men shouldn't be fencing each other.

Inquartata · 07-22-2002, 09:26 PM

For the same reason men and women don't compete against each other in any other Olympic event: men have an advantage, on average, in size and brute strength, of around 10%. Apples and...pomegranates.

D'Artagnan1673 · 07-23-2002, 05:35 AM

In tennis, prior to the Williams sisters, the #100 man in the world could easily beat the #1 woman in the world.

Inquartata · 07-23-2002, 07:21 PM

Billie Jean King to the contrary notwithstanding...

MikeHarm · 07-24-2002, 04:39 AM

I think fencing at the highest levels is a head game. Women can screw with peoples heads just as well as guys can, so I don't buy the argument with regards to fencing.

Philistine · 07-24-2002, 06:31 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by MikeHarm:
I think fencing at the highest levels is a head game. Women can screw with peoples heads just as well as guys can, so I don't buy the argument with regards to fencing.<hr /></blockquote>What sports have men and women competing against each other at the highest levels?

Equestrian does, I think--but even things like shooting and archery do not (IIRC).

--Philistine

Inquartata · 07-24-2002, 06:18 PM

Check any sport in which both men and women participate in the same event ( not, for instance, gymnastics, in which the skills differ ), and which have a strength/speed component ( so not diving, say, or shooting ). The world, Olympic, or whatever records will be about 10% higher for the men's event, reflecting the average 10% difference in muscle mass and size.

Fencing may indeed be a "head game", but the athletic component is not insignificant. All the tactical shrewdness in the world will get you nowhere if you can't keep up physically...as I find to my cost when competing against much younger fencers, for instance.

epeemike81 · 07-24-2002, 06:27 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by MikeHarm:
I think fencing at the highest levels is a head game. Women can screw with peoples heads just as well as guys can, so I don't buy the argument with regards to fencing.<hr /></blockquote>having watched two VERY good womens sabreurs get blown away by average mens sabreurs, I have to agree with everybody else that men and women are NOT created equal when it comes to speed, strength, and stamina.

-m

MikeHarm · 07-24-2002, 06:31 PM

Telling yourself you can't beat someone because they are younger than you or a different sex is nonsense that gets in the way of your game and development as a fencer. Let your opponent do the job of trying to beat you, don't turn against yourself as well.

Peach · 07-24-2002, 07:57 PM

It's tempting to over-generalize about the difference between genders based on anecdotal observation. I've seen competent women sabre fencers beat competent male fencers (heck, I've won a few mixed tournaments myself) but I would agree that statistically, women tend to have less reach, speed, and explosive strength.

I'm comfortable fencing single-sex events at the national level, and I don't bother myself about the relative merits of the weapons by gender. It's a waste of energy for me, and though I understand when people like to argue about the definition of "best" I don't find it terribly entertaining. That's like trying to decide which weight class in boxing is "best," or which fencing weapon is "best," or which sport, for that matter.

Inquartata · 07-24-2002, 08:19 PM

Heh, so, Mike, you're saying it all comes down to outthinking your opponent, and differences in age, size, reach, speed, endurance, strength and ability don't really matter?

I guess Stephen Hawking ought to be beating the pants off of us all, then!

But seriously, the next time I fence Pat Ghattas or Jason Paul or Max Williams I guess I can tell them they only won because they're more cunning than a guy two or three times their age, not really better...

MikeHarm · 07-25-2002, 05:25 AM

There will always be fencers at a higher level than you wether you're young or old. Rather than giving up hope you should look at it in terms of what they are doing and what you are doing and work to develop your ability to outfence them. Perhaps you might have to work 10 times harder than they do because of your age to improve than they do, but that doesn't mean you can't make the decision and commitment to do so.

If you have the attitude you're going to lose against someone before you even set foot on the strip then you've crippled your mental game before you even started. What good does that do anyone?

Hawking is a poor example as he can't hold a weapon, however I'm sure that some of our fencers who are in the wheelchair competitions could outfence people who were in better shape once we were strapped in to the chair under the wheelchair rules.

epeemike81 · 07-25-2002, 09:49 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by MikeHarm:
There will always be fencers at a higher level than you wether you're young or old. Rather than giving up hope you should look at it in terms of what they are doing and what you are doing and work to develop your ability to outfence them. Perhaps you might have to work 10 times harder than they do because of your age to improve than they do, but that doesn't mean you can't make the decision and commitment to do so.

If you have the attitude you're going to lose against someone before you even set foot on the strip then you've crippled your mental game before you even started. What good does that do anyone?

Hawking is a poor example as he can't hold a weapon, however I'm sure that some of our fencers who are in the wheelchair competitions could outfence people who were in better shape once we were strapped in to the chair under the wheelchair rules.<hr /></blockquote>I agree that mental game has a lot to do with it. however, if you take two fencers, a man and a women, both of whom have about the same mental prowess, and both of whom are in about the same relative shape (relative to norms for their gender), the man will win a much higher percentage of the time. It is NOT a level playing field. there are physical differences between men and women. While we are on an equal plane in terms of mental game, even a women with a SPECTACULAR mental game is going to have a very hard time overcoming the natural physical advantages men have. Same goes for age differences as pointed out by inquartata. as you say, he might have to work 10 times as hard as his younger opponents to beat them.... even saying that 10 times is a good number for gender difference (which its not, since it can be an advantage that is impossible to overcome at times), a tenfold difference in work to result ratio is enough to necessitate seperate events. otherwise, women wouldn't get any recognition since there would always be men above them in the standings.

I think the Tennis example is a good one. There IS high level thinking involved, but you have to get to a point where you can physically compete before the thinking can take you to the top. Women cannot get to that point with men. (generalization, of course. I'm sure there ARE exceptions.)

-m

Inquartata · 07-25-2002, 06:07 PM

Hey, whoever said I was "giving up hope" or being defeatist?

I an a life member of the USFA. I'll fence until no longer able to hold a sabre, even if I lose every bout. I love it that much.

But...

I am also a realist. I do not believe that there is any amount of work or attitude that will ever enable me to beat the top fencers of the world. I also do not think that, past a certain point, there is a whole lot that can compensate for the energy, swiftness, endurance, strong joints and passion of youth, given equal skill levels---any more than I think there is anything that will compensate for the greater physical capacities of men over women, given equal skill levels. There will always be individual exceptions, but when you come to the law of averages there is no appeal...