Cherry Blossom Open seperate events for men/women?

[seak]

Capitol Division is dicussing having seperate men's and women's events at this years Cherry Blossom. Last year as a mixed event the Epee was an A4 with 80 people, foil was in the 50's (and not an A and was a B2) and sabre had 35 (also a B2). I am positing this to solicit people's opinions on whether or not we should split the tournament. Would more people attend if it was split? Do we have enough people for it be a quality event for both men and women? Any thoughts, suggestions comments welcome.

As an aside please note this years Cherry Blossom will be in armory at the University of Maryland the same venue as last years mid - atlantic sectionals. This is a change from last year.

[oiuyt]

It would have no effect on my attendance (or lack thereof). Other life events and possible conflicts are what's going to determine whether or not I attend this year.

-B

[Peach]

I almost always go to the Cherry Blossom. I like competing against other women, but I like competing in opens too. I had a blade broken on me by a hard-hitting guy in the last one, but OTOH I beat him. If there are enough women to make it a real event, it would be fine; otherwise it's too far for me to drive for a small event, unless I was going with teammates anyway. Which I might conceivably do.

I realize this is not helpful in the least

[CvilleFencer]

I am not a fan of seperated events. I would also hesistate to make the trip (all 2 hours of it) unless it was likely to be a decently rated tourney. Of course I doubt it would make a huge differance in strength. It would most likely be the difference between an A4 an an A2 in epee, and if you guys want to let the Kickoff be the only A4 event in the area I am cool with that! The foil and saber would be the real problem. I doubt Diane or Jun will be fencing because of kiddige so that would leave womens foil most likely around a C2 unless you draw in some outside A's or B's (or there are some around in the DC?MD area I don't know about which is also pretty likely...). I don't really know much about the saber but if Peach comes down and Deb fences that would most likely be a B1 or B2 I think.

Now that I think about it, having seen it all written out here I don't think it would make a huge differance in tourney strength except possibly to epee. I still don't like seperated events personally but if you think it would help the numbers, at least it would be something kind of different and the ladies may aprreciate it.

[sabreman]

The goal is to pull in fencers from outside the DC / Baltimore metro area* by expanding the tournament. The CBO has a long history and was once one of the biggest tournaments in USA. It was used as a model for the current day NAC tournaments. Last year we had organizational issues (this not going to happen again) but we could see big potential for the future. The UMD Armory is a great venue (2005 MAS venue) and located right off of I-95 via US Route 1. We are going to be giving out some really nice awards for the 2006 CBO and there will be very good officiating. Exact details will be available within the next couple of weeks. This will be event you will not want to miss!

*The Puerto Rican National team attended last year and will be invited again this year.

[Army Fencer]

Cap division and the Baltimore area is getting friendlier to women's events, in large part because of the effort the organizers of the Amazon have put in. BFC is holding an all women's event on November 12-13.

My only fear is that if Cap division decides to have the Cherry Blossom as a gender separate event, it might attract people away from the Amazon epee competition, particularly when the two events are so close together (less than a month apart).

Shouldn't you be asking this within the division, rather than gather input from a nation/international message board? I understand that a lot of people from the MAS post here, but this sort of thing should probably be handled internally. [/$.02]

[seak]

The reason for posting it here is to solicit information from outside of the Cap div area. If the competition is only attended by people from within an hours radius then it will not be reasonable to seperate the events. Also in the past fencers have travelled from up and down the east coast to the tournament.

[mlr2fence]

If I planned to travel to a large 'local' tournament I would want to find a decent number of strong fencers. If not, I probably wouldn't travel very far to attend, esp with current gas prices. Yes, splitting by gender is great but not if it knocks the numbers down for an event to the 1-2 pool range. Same gender can always seek each other out for warm-ups. Can you put in a clause that if over X number then the event is split?

[Peach]

A month apart is not that close, and there shouldn't be any conflict with the Amazon Epee.

[Army Fencer]

Originally Posted by Peach

A month apart is not that close, and there shouldn't be any conflict with the Amazon Epee.

If people are coming from as far away as Florida or New Hampshire (as we've had in the past at the Amazon), it does compete.

[Peach]

Perhaps the price of success?

[Bokken]

Shouldn't you be asking this within the division, rather than gather input from a nation/international message board? I understand that a lot of people from the MAS post here, but this sort of thing should probably be handled internally. [/$.02]

Intra-divisional communication sometimes isn't the best - though that depends on the division.
I'm glad to see things like this posted on a national forum because someone else may have an idea that helps, but is located across the country. Y'know, us librarians and our silly "access to useful information" thing...

That said, I think one higher-rated event will get a better draw than two lesser rated events in the same weapon. On the other hand, I like the idea of splitting by gender if a certain capstone is reached - perhaps if both events can be at least a B2?

[Fechter1]

We're planning to come either way. Although I'd probably be happier if the Epee were an A4 (not sure it would be if events were separated)... Much easier to up that A... Not that I really care about that... much.

Basically, we'll come, we'll fence.

[Joan of Ark]

Originally Posted by seak

I am positing this to solicit people's opinions on whether or not we should split the tournament. Would more people attend if it was split? Do we have enough people for it be a quality event for both men and women? Any thoughts, suggestions comments welcome.

No. Don't split it is my suggestion. Well, if there are say, several B and C and maybe A fencers for the women so that it is a B tournament or better, than go ahead and split it, but if it is an E or D tournament with very few women (say less than 15) do not split it. Yes ,typically, men are stronger and tougher fencers, and I would probably loose sooner to them than I would the women, but if I can beat all the women around easily then I would definately want to fence in the mixed far sooner than just women. Its not any fun when you don't have any good competition. Now, I'm not saying that some girls would'nt have some challenges, but when there are the two or three who are clearly above the rest and many of the guys, too, the womens events are boring and slightly insulting to their abilities. hmm. I hope I made some sense.

[KD5MDK]

I think that if splitting will result in less than a B2 for one event or the other, it shouldn't be done.

[sabreman]

We decided on Mixed Open and Women's Open events. The CBO 2006 is now available for online registration on askfred.net. Cheers!