Is a fencing referee a hybrid?

[gladius]

I found this interesting exchange on Schermaonline in an interview with Remo Bassetti, a former competitive fencer, son of Vittorio Bassetti (one of the best Italian saber maestri in the '70's and '80's), a former maestro himself, a referee, a lawyer, a journalist, and a successful writer.

http://www.schermaonline.com/scherma...rder=0&thold=0

Here is the part on refereeing which I really enjoyed since it offers an interesting prospective on the role of the fencing referee:


SCHERMAONLINE
Often the final results of sporting events are criticized a lot when there are doubts about the impartiality and competence of the referee. There are two approaches to this: (A) a push towards technology and video playback; (B) to consider that human error, when in good faith, is part and parcel of the game, and that the referee is at the center of this decision process.
What's your opinion? What are the general characteristics a referee must have at any level and for any sport?

BASSETTI
There are two types of referees: the certifier and the creative.
The certifier is one who must limit himself to state that something happened.
Example: the ball crosses the goal line. The referee in soccer cannot add to or amplify the rules by deciding that for instance the winning team of a soccer match is not the team that scored more goals but the team that played better, or that got fewer penalties.

The creative on the other hand has the power to add to, to amplify the rules.
Example: in a boxing match, two judges, even if they record the same events in a bout, may assess the points and assign the victory in different ways; one can consider determinant that his winner did throw more punches; the other one may prefer the boxer who landed the most effective punches.

The role of the fencing referee is a hybrid one: theoretically he is a certifier, because he should do nothing else but applying/enforcing the rules; practically, he is a creative because certain rules are so vague/aleatory [just think of this statement: this for me is not an attack because you were moving forwards with an arm which was too bent] that they make the interpretation of the action more an amplification than an ascertainment.

This is almost an unique situation in sports which makes the fencing referee subject to continuous protests and fencers are always convinced that they were robbed by unjust calls.

I believe that the loser in a bout should think about his own mistakes and not about the mistakes by the referee, and keep in mind that if he had fenced better, no referee's call could have made him lose.

It's worth noting also that over time mistakes have a tendency to statistically compensate each other and that a wrong call which today may go against you, tomorrow will give you a nice and undeserved gift.

[KD5MDK]

I think that epee referees are pretty much purely certifiers, by these standards. Unless the referee makes an actual error, the outcome of the bout replayed before infinite different referees will always come out exactly the same, in theory. In theory this applies to foil and sabre as well, but everybody knows it doesn't work that way. Even if all the referees in the world currently call things in one way, the same bout may have been called very differently a few years ago, or a few years in the future.

I think the thing about fencing refereeing to me that is relatively unique is the sheer number of calls required, per unit of sporting activity. The only thing that seems comperable off the top of my head is a baseball umpire determining balls and strikes, and even then the complexity is much less (though the difficulty of decision may be equal or greater).