Women's Saber Tianjin, China

[Mr.MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Why so? That's as it should be, IMO. The attack begins with extension, and if the extension doesn't continue without break it stops. Attack, no.

There is such thing as a feint, 2nd or even a 3rd intention,some times performed with a fully extended hand, defender searching for a blade, etc.; if you take them away, saber will get closer and closer to laser tag.
Sentiment in European press seems to be that the governing body is trying to implement a geographical representation of directors in order to placate newly joined federations or make more of "the global sport" of fencing; thus the quality of directing is suffering.
May be they have been told to simplify the phrases in order to standardize the Olympic saber?

I do recall reading, that after St. Petersburg a Brazilian representative was publicly criticizing directing of Pozdniakov's semi win.

[edew]

No, it will not make fencing better for the viewers. The result is more attack-counterattack and will make the viewer even more confused when trying to parse 0.003 seconds of difference in the action.

A small feint is practically undetectable to the untrained up. If the counterattack starts and the final attack after the feint begins, it would look to the casual observer as just one continuous action for the attacker, but the call went the other way. Not good.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by Capt. Slo-mo

Now, though the attack may be feinting and drawing reaction, or even just coming forward and stuttering with the advance to try to disrupt the timing of the AIP, even if the attacker finishes directly and extends before the extension of the defender...the preponderance of the calls seems to be going in favor of the defender's counter attack. The "premiere attack no" call seems to bypass the final extension of the attacker and give a wide latitude to the defender's response.

Maybe I'm still not understanding..."final extension"? As in one continuous extension throughout the attacker's forward progress, or as in moving forward in prep and just finishing when the defender finally does something?

If the former, that's bad---but really, it just isn't possible to advance very far while continuously extending...at least not without extending so gradually that the ref cannot perceive the motion.

If the latter...the "consensus of referees" has long been that the attacker can just move leisurely forward doing just about anything with his hand ( including nothing ) and so long as he then extends and hits in the end it doesn't matter that the defender began to extend first. This is the opposite of what the rules specify, and if it's going away I am glad.

Originally Posted by Mr.MightyMouse

There is such thing as a feint, 2nd or even a 3rd intention,some times performed with a fully extended hand, defender searching for a blade, etc.; if you take them away, saber will get closer and closer to laser tag.

There are indeed such things, and if refs are now ignoring reactions to feints or searches then they have gone too far the other way. Sounds like yet another gambit by refs to make parsing calls easier on themselves by way of a mental "rule of thumb".

May be they have been told to simplify the phrases in order to standardize the Olympic saber?

It will never work.