Optimum event selection in a meet

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


From another thread:

Originally Posted by Sabreur

I'd also quit having these mega-events with all the weapons and all the age groups and all the divisions (EDEW is spot on with his comment about the confusing use of the word "division.")

At a minimum, I'd have single weapon events. If you wanted to indulge your fantasies about becoming a triple A, you'd have to travel more. I'd be inclined to break it down even further, into separate Junior, Open and Veteran's events.

I think the selection of events in a given meet warrants its own thread, so I decided to take it to another thread, rather than jacking.

The Swedish championships are quite different compared to the USA ones. Sweden is the size and shape of California, with 3000 members in the Sw. Fencing Federation. Of those, maybe 300-400 enter a competition each year - my rough guess. So, it seems that one could have a championship weekend for all of it.

Far from it. This year, there was one weekend with ME (60-70 competitors), WE (30 or so, ask ZZ), MF (30+), and WF (20). MS (14) was held concurrently with a ME+WE competition of roughly NAC size and strength - a few weeks later. (ZZ attended the WE, ask her about competition details.) At the same time and place, the MxEVet event was also held. There is no WS. That was senior Ind. events. The junior ind events were held another weekend, and cadet Ind. yet another. The junior+cadet teams were held held at a further weekend. To top it off, the Senior team events were held two weekends ago - Saturday MF (5 attending teams) and WE (4), Sunday ME (8), WF (4), MS (6). I think that several of the MS team medalists are primarily E/F fencers. We have no qualifiers, pay and be present is all that is needed.

I think that one could have done this in a more compressed schedule, but maybe lack of pistes explains the drawn-out schedule.

This is in stark contrast to USA NAC´s with 1000+ competitors, and in the case of Summer Nats 70+ events.

I think that the Sw. Nats are too small, while the USA ones sure seem to large for their own good.

What is your opinion on optimum size? How do you do your regional or national championships in regions/federations roughly the size of Sweden?

If one is to split up the huge US. events, I think that a better solution than splitting it weapon-wise is to split it gender-wise. Relatively many people fence multiple weapons, but no one fences multiple genders in championships. The summer Nats could be split so that men took the 1st half of the week, while the women the 2nd, or vice versa. By doing this, people will have less days not fencing between two events, and the number of hotel nights for many people could be limited.

There are two epee marathons in Sweden, one WE and one ME. They are held at different places and weekends. Since the ME one is so huge, this is on the balance a good thing. ZZ is a member of the club organizing the WE marathon, and she competed in it.

All kind of splitting runs into the problem of allotment of multi-weapon certified referees. That is a thorny issue, and I do not presently see any way around it. Any ideas?

Any other ideas on how to make monster tournaments more nimble, without making qualification paths too difficult, requiring too many referee days off day time job, and still using the set number of pistes? Difficult resource allotment problem there - just imagine the matrix equation needed to solve it!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[azfencer]

I don't think that splitting the events up by gender would be very popular at all! Many fencers are part of families in which husbands and wives, or both daughters and sons, both fence. Most plan carefully to minimize the number of days that hotels etc must be paid for and would really dislike having events 5-10 days apart! Even if you only travel with clubmates there are usually both men and women who would like to travel together, socializing is a big part of the fun of nationals.

I doubt there's a good way of splitting events but I wonder if completely separating out the youth events from the adult events would work. They are already split to some extent, but how nice would it be to have everything in order of age? Start with all veteran's events the first two days, all open the next ??? days, all juniors for two days, all cadet for two and have the youth spread over the junior, cadet, and maybe another day or two.

Can anyone imagine that summer nationals will ever get completely split into two separate weeklong events? I can't figure out how that would work but if we keep getting bigger...

[KD5MDK]

I would do it something like Div I, then Vet-Junior, then Div 2-3/Cadet. The idea being that parents are more likely to have children and be Vets or lower level fencers than a family who stretches from Div I to children's events.