Annuling the touch?

[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by peet

I think we can all agree that if you fall after the action is over, there should be no penalty.

But if you fall during the action that hits, I think the rule applies, regardless of the reason for the fall. The rationale that was given for this at a NAC ref meeting a long time ago was that if your (scoring) action ends with you sprawled on the floor, you deprive your opponent of making a (potentially) valid action against you, because you are not where you "should" be to be hit*.

That being said, I think many refs (myself included) will give people a bit of leeway when a fall clearly could not affect the course of the bout at all. We all know that refs exercise discretion as to how strict to be about certain rules in any given situation.

There is the rule, and there is how it is enforced. My previous posts concern the rule, which makes no mention of whether a fall is accidental, or particularly out of control. It just says "touch scored while falling". How strictly to apply it in real life is up to the ref.

-p

(BTW, how come my name ended up in all caps? Because FRED is that way? FRED is an acronym, Peet is not.. )

*Particularly if you are wearing a lame on a grounded strip, which may result in your lame grounding to the strip, depriving your opponent of any lights at all, should they actually find your target.

This seems most reasonable. I have no idea why I used PEET. All caps somehow seemed appropriate given your status as a referee.

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Yeah, but how did he make it to the 8 while carrying such a burden as an habitual passe-avant? The referees ( and opponents! ) of all of his pool bouts and his DEs just didn't notice? Wow...

It is not uncommon as the event progresses and fatigue builds up that there is a greater likelihood of a mistake such as an inadvertent crossover.

I have also observed that it is sometimes triggered from a more open distance. The fencer would not have had to crossover to reach his opponent from his usual distance but since they were further apart it required an "extra" effort to score.

[peet]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

This seems most reasonable. I have no idea why I used PEET. All caps somehow seemed appropriate given your status as a referee.

Well, i'm not so sure being a referee confers all that much "status", particularly to a mid-grade referee such as myself!

Now I suppose we might allcaps DAMON or CHARLIE or WES, and all their ilk...

-p

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Yeah, but how did he make it to the 8 while carrying such a burden as an habitual passe-avant? The referees ( and opponents! ) of all of his pool bouts and his DEs just didn't notice? Wow...

I somehow missed the reference to myself back when this thread was originally posted.

To answer the questions, I noticed his habit during his L64 bout (his portion of the tableau was on the adjacent strip to mine. I noted it for future reference. The referee of that strip missed it multiple times, as did his opponents.

It was a specific situation at specific distances that induced the crossover.

The final touch of the bout wasn't QUITE "just [running] away from the en guarde line and his oponent eventually crossed over, giving Brad the bout.", but it wasn't far from it. It also felt like the only "reasonable" way to have that bout end.

The fencer in question had, as far as I could tell, mostly/completely removed the habit by JO's a couple of weeks later (although, granted, I only saw a couple instances of the situation that had triggered the crossover at the DitD).

-B