Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog

For a while now — since before Backpacking Dad pointed out to me that I will no longer have time for it last week — I have been pondering what to do about fencing next year.

Clearly, my ideal participation level — practicing three times a week and attending a tournament once a month — is out. Come October, there will simply not be time for it. But I very much enjoy this game, in which you try to tag your opponent with a spring-loaded metal stick, so making time for it is paramount.

Heading into the British National Championships, I was contemplating playing a bigger role on the sidelines — rather than competing and training, I would endeavour to contribute through refereeing and maybe volunteering some of my time with British Fencing.

However, my experience at the Nationals soured me on this idea. In order to contribute to the well-being of British Fencing, it seems that one must put a lot into the relationship and expect to get nothing out of it. But I have no prior relationship with British Fencing to make this unbalanced relationship seem worthwhile — I just do not care. I have tried to list what British Fencing does — or has done — for me.

The results do not look impressive:

1: They provide insurance, as part of the membership. But I do not spend time volunteering for any of the other insurance companies that cover me, so that means little. Also, I have never had cause to make a claim upon the insurance policy.

2: They provide training for referees who referee domestic competitions. I am trying not to laugh, really. Really. If you aren’t laughing yourself, you clearly do not fence domestic British competitions.

3: They provide training for coaches. But not my coach, who is Polish, and not trained through the British system.

4: They organise tournaments, like the National Championships. I am unable to attend these, as a competitor, as I am not a citizen of the UK.

In total, British Fencing does very little for me, and I do not feel the same attachment as I would for the Canadian Fencing Federation or Ontario Fencing Association back home — those organisations played a large role in my development as a fencer, coach and referee. I do not get the same enjoyment helping British Fencing as I do from playing, nor as much as I might from supporting one of the organisations that helped me.

Unless I am to be compensated for my time, I can see little reason to contribute my time to fencing in that manner. This leads my plans away from the sidelines, and back behind the mask.

I will fence next year.

My goals are very small: to attend practice at least once a month, and to compete in three tournaments over the course of the fencing season. Of course, this means I will not actually be joining a fencing club — I will be attending sufficiently rarely that simply paying drop fees will be more economic.

But it will keep me in the sport for the coming year.

And in future years? Who knows — my daughter might turn out to be a fencer, and the impetus to sacrifice my time for the sport might appear.

Image by Alan Chia, available under CC License

This past weekend I attended my first British National Championship. Not as a competitor — I am not, after all, a British national — but as a referee.

I had some trepidations about this. British Fencing does not pay referees (other than expenses), a money-saving move which — in this blogger’s opinion — hurts the quality of the sport in the country a great deal, and results in many potential strong referees deciding not to referee. This in fact happened during this year’s championships, with most British sabre referees competing, but I digress. The refusal to pay referees is a big part of the reason why I had not previously refereed a British Fencing-run event. That I like the sport and am generally happy to referee does not mean that I want to do so for free.

However, a few compelling reasons had pushed me towards attending.

First, I had not been to a competition in any capacity since October. This is simply too long. British competitions suffer from a couple of problems — they are overcrowded and under-refereed — which make it rather easy to find an excuse to be absent. But I missed simply being at a fencing competition and very much wanted to go.

Second, I thought it would be a good development opportunity. British men’s foil is as good as you will find anywhere, so the quality of the fencing would be excellent, and with the top British referees in attendance, I hoped that I would find some opportunity to improve as a referee.

Finally, I looked forward to the times at the end of the day after I had been dismissed as a referee — as a first-timer at the Nationals and without an FIE license, I was sure to have a relatively early end to my days. I could then cheer on my clubmates and take photographs.

Instead, I found myself being used the entire day. The pre-tournament meeting was at 8:40 in the morning. I refereed a woman’s foil semi-final around 6:00 in the afternoon — by that point, all my clubmates had been eliminated. And I was standing beside a piste as an assesseur at 9:15 in the evening when the final hit of the day was scored.

All in all, on Saturday, I worked a twelve-and-a-half hour day. For free. With all the various stresses that come with being a referee. On Sunday, I had a little bit of a reprieve due to an early train time and a competition that was running behind schedule, and was free after the men’s foil quarterfinals.

With two of my club’s teams still in the action, and forty-five minutes before I had to catch a cab to the train station, it gave me a few minutes to watch the end of a woman’s foil semi-final, and the start of a men’s foil semi-final, with friends and clubmates competing.

And I realised that this was what I wanted when I agreed to come and referee. To spend time with these people, to cheer them on — even if I was not actually competing with them. The free train ticket and hotel room provided by British Fencing to referees had proved a strong lure.

My Saturday was awful. I was exhausted, over-warm in my suit on a July team in a room full of sweaty fencers, unpaid, and I did not get to watch more than one bout by my clubmates. I took three photographs. Sunday was only marginally improved, and only because I had to leave early.

It is not what I wanted. And while I was hardly the most abused official of the day — others had tougher schedules, and had to deal with more problematic fencers and coaches than I did — it is not something that I think I will do again. There is just too much of a gap between what I put into it and what I got out of it.

And that’s sad.

Anybody who participates in the sport of fencing should read the rulebook, and keep abreast of rules changes. Those who referee fencing bouts, in particular, should ensure that they read the rulebook on a regular basis.

I will be putting on my referee hat this coming weekend at the British National Championships — for the first time since October — and am spending time this week ensuring I am up to date with the rules.

Fencing rules come in three distinct flavours. There is the actual rulebook, available in the original French and in its official English translation. A second flavour consists of official letters, which can (but most often do not) make alterations to the rules mid-season.

The third (and final) flavour concerns official interpretations and points of emphasis, about which I cannot do much from home. Staying up to date regarding these requires regular attendance at competitions and correspondence with referees, rather than the lax approach to fencing I have adopted over the past two years.

Beyond these three aspects of knowing the rules, a referee also needs to know the local exceptions to the rules. Most of these tend to be in regards to the safety equipment — due to the expense of fencing kit, most national governing bodies have decided that they will allow protective gear of a lower quality than required at the international level.

While part of me is always taken aback by this — we are talking about safety, after all — it also makes sense. Equipment rated CE2 (meaning it meets the international requirements) is approximately twice the cost of that rated CE1 (a lower standard), and it is far from clear that the lower standards result in a higher rate of serious injury. That lower cost means a lower barrier to entering the sport, and more participants.

National governing bodies –and many individuals in the fencing world — like having more participants.

The British rule exceptions are pretty straightforward here for the most part — a mix of CE1 and CE2 equipment requirements, rather than CE2 across the board. Then there are masks.

Some years ago — against the recommendation of their own medical commission — the international body responsible for fencing (the FIE) decided to introduce new requirements for masks, by adding transparent visiors to the mask as a requirement to compete at the highest level. For the first time (to my knowledge) there was a change in safety gear to make it arguably less safe, for the sake of television ratings.

Consequently, many people were saying “I told you so” when, late last year, the use of such masks was suspended after an incident:

The FIE has been informed that on 1st November 2009 a foil blade pierced through the transparent visor of a mask during the Junior/Cadet European Championships in Odense (DEN).

After investigation, a mid-season rule change was made:

to suspend and forbid, until further notice, the use of the transparent visor mask both in foil and epee, at all FIE official competitions.

Every national federation we are aware of at the Big Bad Blog followed suit with a similar ban, save one. The British. Instead, the British rule reads as follows:

All use of foil and épée transparent masks where the transparent visor consists of only one layer of transparent material is suspended until further notice.

Foil and épée transparent masks with visors fitted with two layers of transparent material (a main layer and an outer ‘scratch layer’) may continue to be used, as may all transparent masks at sabre. Only the mask manufacturer’s own outer scratch layer may be used. For the elimination of doubt, this includes fitted when new and retro-fit outer layers.

It should be noted that only one company in the world sells a scratch layer for their visors. And that happens to be Leon Paul, the only British-based manufacturer of fencing equipment and a sponsor for British Fencing.

This essentially amounts to a decision that, for this class of masks, only those of their sponsor are permitted in competition. It also means that Great Britain might be the only place in the world that allows these masks in foil and epee competitions.

While we won’t claim to be experts on the safety of polycarbonate visors here at the Big Bad Blog, it’s hard not to be troubled by the apparent conflict-of-interest that exists in this case. Though I have grown accustomed to the conflict of interest that pits safety against ease of access to the sport, I cannot help but find this conflict of interest a little bit less comfortable, and harder to support.

Lately, I have been thinking about the Olympics. Perhaps it is a continuation of the triumphant afterglow of the games in Vancouver, in which Canada led the gold medal count for the first time, or perhaps it is all the signs around Greenwich telling us how wonderful it is going to be to be an Olympic venue.

In any case, the Olympics are certainly on my mind.

Since moving to London, I have been at a fencing club that practices only foil. As a foilist, this is fine by me — it maximizes the potential group of training partners in the space, and all that. On moving to Greenwich, I discovered that there is also a local fencing club which meets on Tuesday night — which happens to be an evening in which my normal club does not practice. This club is a three weapon club, and I found myself itching to pick up an epee (no sabre fencers were out) for the first time in four years.

Prior to becoming an ex-pat, I had only ever been at three weapon clubs. Hardly a week would go by in which I would not do a little bit of sabre or epee to complement my foil fencing. I would coach and referee in all three weapons, to some extent. I am not — and never have been — in danger of morphing into the world’s greatest foilist. The fencing I do is for the enjoyment I derive from it. Whether it is beneficial to my fencing or not, picking up a different weapon is quite an enjoyable activity. It is also something that I had sadly forgotten about.

Back to the Olympics.

The Olympic Games have champions, and some champions are deemed to be greater than others. In recent history, for example, no fencer can be thought to be a more successful Olympian than Valentina Vezzali, with five gold medals a silver and a bronze over the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 games. With individual women’s foil events in each games, and team events in three of the four, she has won the maximum number of medals available to her, the vast majority of them gold.

Yet she is considered less of a champion than the Michael Phelpses and the Carl Lewises of the world. Phelps has only gone to two Olympics, but has eclipsed Vezzali’s total in 2008 alone. Of course, Phelps and Lewis have advantages. Phelps won his medals over eight separate events, Lewis over four different events. A fencer, by comparison, has (at most) two events in which to prove him or herself over the course of an Olympic games.

This was not always the case. Nedo Nadi won five gold medals in 1920 — all three team gold medals, plus the foil and sabre individuals. Edoardo Mangiarotti won thirteen medals (six gold) over five Olympics in foil and epee — and his total would likely have been higher if World War II did not occur during what would have likely been his peak years.

But following Mangiarotti’s last Olympic medals in the 1960 Olympics, there is only one more instance of a fencer receiving medals in multiple weapons — Smirnov in 1980. So what happened? I had believed that a rule was introduced which banned fencing in multiple weapons. But I cannot find one on the books, nor can I find evidence via Google — so I am forced to conclude that I was mistaken and look for other causes.

I found two.

First, the talent pool got deeper. If you look at Olympic medalists from 1896 to 1960 a pattern emerges — France and Italy win the vast majority of the foil and epee medals; Hungary and Italy the sabre medals. There are occasional interlopers — individual fencers from other countries who can manage to break into the ranks of the elite — but if you were not French, Italian or Hungarian, it seems unlikely that you would possess the pedigree to become an Olympic medalist.

In 1960, things start to change. The foil event was won by Viktor Zhdanovich, a Soviet — the first time somebody who was not Italian or French won the event since 1904, and only the second time such a thing had happened. Epee was won by an Italian, but the British and Soviets each earned their first-ever Olympic medals in epee.

Since then, Italy has still managed to be the most competitive country at foil, and France at epee, but all three weapons stopped being two-horse races, and Olympic fencing has changed from a competition between three countries to a competition between Europeans, and finally to a global competition in which it is normal to see non-European fencers walk away with medals.

Still, with the rule changes that have been made in recent years, one can see that modern fencers have not lost the ability to adapt. Much like Christian D’Oriola — an Olympic champion at foil, and French national champion at sabre — managed the change to electric foil fencing in the 1950s, fencers like Vezzali have proven that they can handle changes in the manner in which hits need to be delivered (with the 2005 timing changes) and how points are called (with the introduction of video review). While her style might not translate well to sabre, it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that — had it been perceived as an option — Vezzali might have some Olympic medals in epee to go along with her seven foil medals, and might have already joined the other women on this list as one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

That said, even if an athlete could handle the combined depth of field amongst her peers and the divergence in style amongst two or three weapons, she would still inevitably run up against the second barrier that I discovered: Scheduling conflicts.

While the gymnasts, swimmers and runners of the world can count on having multiple event types at each competition, at the world level competitions are required by the FIE to be limited in scope to three of the six sex/weapon combinations. For organisers, this makes it easier to arrange for two of those to be in the same weapon, rather than three of them being for the same sex.

On top of this, the circuit for one weapon is eight events — six world cups, a zonal event and a world championship. The six world cups occur within a five month period, and fencers must attend competitions from various continents in order to maximize their results. To be at the top of the world rankings in two weapons, this would require twelve events over five months. Three would mean 18 competitions over 22 weeks all over the world. Exhaustion would set in if they could not combine multiple events into a single competition event, as occurs in other sports.

Besides this, the FIE sets aside a particular weekend in each month to be the designated “women’s event” weekend (and another for men’s events). As few competitions are even two-weapon competitions, scheduling a calendar that is competitive in more than one weapon ranks between difficult and impossible.

Unless the culture of fencing as it relates to multiple weapon fencers changes, such that it is a consideration for those constructing the schedule, Smirnov will likely be the last to medal in multiple weapons at an Olympics, Magiarotti will certainly be the last multi-discipline champion, and Nadi’s record of five fencing medals in a single games will never be under threat.

Moreover, fencing will always lack a singular face that dominates the sport. We will not have our Michael Phelps, our Usain Bolt, or our Michael Jordan. Our champions will only ever have one third of the pie, and no matter how dominant they are on their path to victory, there are two other champions that they must share the podium with.

I cannot help but think that this is a sad thing. News organisations covering the Olympics will happily lose all perspective when following an individual who is setting a record for medals at a single games, or total career medals. And I would love to sit down and watch that being done for a fencer.

This won’t happen when I watch in 2012. And it probably will never happen again.