Response to Fencing's Biggest Open Secret

Thanks for this, first of all.

I remember you're conversation with Dan Kellner where he said in essence that he didn't care how the refs were calling things as long as they were consistent.
So...How do you GET all refs "on the same page" when some are clearly dishonest or at thie very least not fairly disinterested?

One really could fairly ask why foil seems to be far less plagued with these issues (or don't you agree?).
We have the same potential for right of way to be interpreted capriciously but yet we all, mostly, seem to settle on a convention, at least in a given year, that the refs adhere to.

An appeal to bad actours isn't likely to be effective, in my view.
USFA needs to be willing and able to step in and intervene much the way the IOC did in the Kharlan case.
Membership could and should be revoked in those cases with clear evidence of cheating or bias.

Great video! I was wondering if the problems addressed in this video, such as defense & offense being off balanced, and reffing being ambiguous, apply similarly to foil? Or do these problems really only apply to sabre? (I figured epee isn't affected by these problems at all considering a light simply mean a point)

Andrew, do you have data on what was the percentage of successful parry-riposte vs. successful counterattack in the time of 50% defense effectiveness?

Olga Kharlan was given a black card and rightfully so. She should have been a fair sport and shown respect to our sport. But I do like your video and I agree with everything you said!

Agree with most of this, but I have to completely disagree that one of the primary reasons for getting into fencing is to possibly qualify to the Olympics. I have introduced hundreds of fencers to the sport over the years. There is an occasional child or parent who pipe dreams like that. But by far the vast majority get into fencing because "they love swords and want to learn to fight with them". Losing access to the Olympics would be a hard marketing crush, and probably put a nail in the coffin for the fencing elite clubs/coaches, but I really don't think most grassroot clubs would even notice.

I’m very new to the sport, my son just starting 4 month ago, but we love it! One thing that fascinates me is how the sport evolves. It requires great creativity to get the advantage. It’s unfortunate to see the possibility of cheating with the ambiguity, but it seems the nature of the sport could lend itself to evolving around it to some degree. We have seen a huge up swing in enrollment in our club with the younger crop. Keep making videos and providing education because this new generation is watching. 👍

Why can't we go back to the way they fenced saber back in 2008 or 2005? Even 1996 is better then today's fencing, which is so awful I know a couple of A rated fencers and a national champion walking away from the sport because of the way saber is played today. I myself am on the edge...mostly due to the reffing...............Great ending to your vid btw

Miss the old timing... Every time I've brought it up, most howl at how terrible it was. But, of all times to fence sabre, that was the best. 
I'm also in favour of anything that takes the referee out of the equation.

I'm not sure what happened to my original comment, but I think that in an ideal world, the balance should be 55-60% success rate for attacks. Enough to incentivize attacking and make it better than defense to promote a more entertaining style, but not enough that it's oppressive. I'd like to see maybe a 135ms lockout timer and how that plays out.

What about moving the en guarde line back outside of advance lunge distance thus removing the 40% simultaneous attacks in the middle?

As someone who ended their world cup career in foil in 2012 and starting coaching, I have really shifted my opinion on foil and saber ROW issues. I think the introduction to the topic is spot-on, discussing the level of interpretation to score in foil/saber is simply unacceptable regardless of any tweaks we make. For example, my mom has been watching fencing for 30+ years yet is bewildered with who scores in so many actions. Can you imagine that same thing happening in any popular sport. "I love hockey but its just so hard to know who scored?..." Furthermore, with my students it feels insane that I don't expect them to really have a good grasp on ROW for years.

I think radical change is needed that is outside of the box. I think for Saber timing is one part of it but what about increasing the weight of the weapon to slow actions down? If you can't change line as quickly suddenly defense is an option. Other sort of insane ideas should be on the table too, I think, for foil could eliminate ROW with exception of just parry riposte? With timing adjustments I think that could be really interesting, where attacks become closer to epee as the opponent can double out. Then as one person is ahead there is an incentive to use blade actions to secure a single point? I think praying for an end to corruption due to good intentions or even cracking down on problem refs will not work.

The rules need to be simplified full stop. Prevents corruption and increases viewership and participation.

Thank you! It has been too long since common sense chose to wake up and speak as loud as duplicity does.

I just beat god of war

smart answer to a clearly (as you said it) depressing problem. hope your propositions will be heard

Thank you for this video and shedding light on this situation. I have been involved in the sport since I started competing in 2013, so I have watched most of these situations unfold firsthand. I completely agree with reverting the timing change back to its original timing - I think that the adverse effects of the change outweigh the original intention of cutting down on remise scoring. Now, attacks are too strong within the strategy of fencing and it leads to vicious fighting within the box for right-of-way and basically eliminates any strategy that involves long-defense.

First, I would like to note that I do not believe eliminating referee bias or getting all referees on the same page is possible in the current situation. I think there are two changes that must be made. First of all, referee bias seems to me to be composed of two problems; lack of incentive and strict requirements leading to moral hazard problems, and unclear rules within the two major rulebooks used throughout the fencing world.
Let's start with the lack of incentive and strict requirements for becoming a referee. Under-compensation of referees is a large problem, making it much easier for referees to make this decision to turn towards scandalous and biased behavior - after all, it is much easier to participate in unethical behavior when money is involved to compensate for any risk taken. This problem has an obvious but difficult solutions to provide; we need to have stricter requirements for becoming a referee and there needs to be more thought put into how to better compensate referees. When I say stricter requirements towards becoming a referee, I mean more clear assessments of a referee's abilities. For example, we could have referees tested on touches from videod bouts to see how they make calls. In addition, prior experience level, especially as an actual accomplished fencer, would be extremely indicative of refereeing ability as well. Obviously, neither of these idea can happen until people start putting their money where their mouths are, and fencing has more money invested into it.

This leads us to the second problem, unclear rules. I recently went through both the USA Fencing and FIE rulebooks, and my main problem with sabre rules is how unclear the rules are. Within T106, they define the idea of simultaneous actions, but they do not really outline what specific requirements fulfill simultaneous actions. In addition, the rules apply differently when someone has right-of-way versus when we are talking about in the box - for example, when someone is ahead in feet but pulls their arm in the box, we count that as preparation, but when the same thing happens with right of way established out of the box, we call it attack counterattack. This is not up for dispute and is clearly defined. However, a problem arises because there are referees that will loosely interpret the rules, blurring the lines between attack-in-prep and attack-counterattack within the box. I think this arises from a lack of specific requirements outlined within the rules. The common actions within the sport that are not just distance parry, parries, and attacks should be described clearly along with the requirements for fulfilling the actions. For example, we could have a conversation about when an attack-in-prep is actually a counterattack within the box and then have it clearly defined in the rules; say that we made it so that a certain amount of distance has to be covered along with the hand being first during simultaneous actions in order for it to count as attack-in-preparation. Alternatively, we could define attack-counterattack as the situation where both hands hit at the same time but one fencer covered a clearly defined extra distance in the middle. Whatever the case, the rules need to be more specific in order to lessen the amount of interpretation that can be taken by referees. In this way, it makes it extremely difficult to exploit a bias when making judgements on touches.

Cryus, your last point about refs all being on the same page. Agreed. But the thing is at present, the entire structure of "what is correct" is being set by a handful of very high level referees / coaches, and the consensus among them is what is trickling down to us mortals. Leaving aside that they are coaches of players in the game, they have a dog in the fight, they also act is if they are gods on high, and we accept it, like it's the weather. Complain all you want about the weather, no one ever does anything about it. Old joke, right? OK, high level refs decide to change things, and the rest of us accept it, like it is the weather and we can't do anything about it.
The referees are not supposed to be artists. They are not supposed to be creative. They are supposed to be making the tough calls, not changing the interpretation of those calls.
We need workmen as referees. Bricklayers, not arts. Or better ye accounts, who get in trouble when they get creative. Fencers are not supposed to be a canvas for refs to play with.

I would be interested in the data in regards to hand injuries in sabre fencing when the timings were short? During that era, hand injuries seemed to increae and the FIE changed to 800N gloves in respose. Point hits to wrist were very vogue as it increased the chance of one light! I definatly support the community for transparency in refereeing, I dont think changing the box timing is one of the many answers to solve it but talking about it and collating what we can see in the streaming, is a couragous start!

Excellent points all, I agree 100%

nice t shirt

Bring back ‘Nico vs Aldo at the Madrid GP’ style sabre fencing!

Yes?No?Abstain? Think it was bad now?

Fencing is not a ball sport, it cannot be a ball sport and it can never be scored like a ball sport. Let's not compare it to ball sports.

Yes, shorten the timing to make attack and defense equally strong. Also, perhaps make hits in the center box invalid?

So maybe I should switch from sabre to epee.

Excellent video, and bravo for being brave and out-front about this! I am posting this to our club’s FB page, and will throw all my students into a headlock to make them watch it. Suggestion: why don’t they publish a written version of the current rules, supplemented with video clips to clarify the rules. Right now it is the “current feeling” about reprise or preparation, which seems to mutate every four months. The old resistance to this was that it would be too expensive to print, translate and distribute. As a DOWNLOAD this argument is no longer valid. Sadly I think reffing issues will speed the arrival of AI refs.

Thank you for this.

Can someone please explain why ROW was added to foil and sabre? The touching the blade just loud enough to be heard by the ref being called a parry drives me nuts. Maybe shorten the timings and remove ROW... and have the refs actually card people for running into each other would also be good.

First, don’t let the referee be so pedantic for calls in the box. There should be more simultaneous calls when both fencers attack in the box. It should be some action that doesn’t require video review to distinguish who did a “cleaner” attack. Second, “distance parries” during the back and forth phase should give the person who successfully evaded the attack all the time in the world (ok, a slight exaggeration) to take over. Third, forward cut by the attacker that ends should end the attack. Attackers can’t be marching down the strip chopping continuously. Of course, the defender has to take over, but is so, give point to defender making that “distance parry”.

I’m curious, the 2005 timing caused perfectly good reposts to be timed out. It does give a more opportunity for stop, cuts and counter attacks when they’re going backwards. It would be interesting to see referees, call arm and hand actions on the long attack, similarly to the box.

New Jersey high school 3 weapon Team Fencing is THE most entertaining version of Fencing to watch!
Easy access to understanding and engagement: total team points available is 27, the first team to 14 wins, fence all 27.
The whole meet = 1 movie of time, broken into 27 episodes, 2 to 5 minutes each.

Great video. Love the stats. Grinding stats are like aces in tennis, rallies entertaining. There was a patch in the past when big hitters dominated then athletes got stronger and better able to return. Is this a likely change? Also could adopt previous rules when sabre flèche was together and then priority was given. What about using the x-box Kinect technology or something similar to formalise ROW. Get rid of referees all together.

For anyone trying to put the difference between '50% of attacks land' vs. '75% of attacks land' into perspective: If I win 50% of touches, one of us will win the bout 15-14. If I win 75% of touches, I will win the bout 15-5.

Thank you for your very nice response to the initial video. One comment is that the same happened to tennis in the last 30 years where the sport changed to a lot of more back and forth and a lot less actions at the net. Another comment from my husband Jeremy is that refereeing for attack in the box might be standardized in the future through AI, permitting more uniform decisions across referees and within tournaments. But will that be still fun?

Andrew, I have more radical ideas on how to deal with this nightmare. If you will be at JO in Charlotte, let's talk.

There's a very simple solution to sabre's problem. Just toss out all double light touches. Forget about right of way rules. The only way a sabre fencer can score a touch is for him to hit the other guy without getting hit himself. The takes away the subjective element from the referees. We all know half of the time they couldn't tell because the actions were so fast and they were just making stuff up anyway. This will force all the sabre fencers to actually fence to win rather than just lunging at each other as fast as they can every time.

Great video as always, thanks for what you're doing here. Appreciate the history lesson on boxing . . . . and I hope we don't go the same way.

Thank you.

Great video! Fully agree with everything you said! I would like to add that also quite a common touch on defense was pris de fer which is now mostly given as a parry riposte for the attacking fencer. Reasoning: „You took the blade too low.“ Currently, a defending fencer has close to no tools other than a distance parry - which is an incredibly difficult touch on international level - or a classic parry - which if you are unlucky gets called mal parre. Like … no wonder that every coach is now focusing everything on your prep & athletism in order to make you win the right of way. Currently, there‘s no room for strategic fencing.

Cyrus for FIE president

It's sabre, isn't it always "pointless" to attack. 😜

Great video. You're so right, Andrew - shortening the timing again would fix an awful lot and help cure the prevalence of the janky bounce attack (the kicking opponents sabre with your foot video has to be the nadir of that crap).

What was the problem that the change of timing was solving? Sabre was functioning very well then.

Screw it. Bring back the sabre fleche. Return to 1980s timings in the conventional weapons and quit calling passivity in épée.

I'm a beginning epee fencer and confess to ignorance on these matters. But you seem to be spot on in your analysis. May I ask, why not go further? Why not focus on a goal of completely objectifying judging? Why not eliminate Right of Way, or does it encourage defense and more "balance?" There may be many clever ways to eliminate most judgement calls. Why not award 1/2 point for NOT getting hit when a touch is scored (a "clean" touch)?. This sport evolved from dueling, but it no longer resembles sword play. Do I win if I impale you a tenth of a second before you impale me? We're both dead! Saber bouts are particularly ridiculous now - no defense whatsoever.

Fencing Sabre now very very Bad, only fast fast fast....

I've always fenced foil and have only loved it more since the lockout time was tightened. That said, I always felt like people thought foil was the most frustrating to fence and a majority of people eventually moved on to other weapons. Given the frustration of most points being awarded by referee, I always understood why. Now in 2024 to get an epee fencer to stick their arm out you have to card them 5 times. In sabre 60% of the points are decided by analyzing the molecules on someone's arm to determine which of the two people who immediately double advance lunged did so "more correctly."

Sabre and Epee are gonna have to figure something out so that us foilists can go back to being made fun of baselessly again. Without the constant ridicule we both deserve and have become accustomed to, how will we truly reach our full potential?

Richard Francis “Dick” Oles, who coached Johns Hopkins fencing athletes to more than 600 team victories over 44 years, used to call that "two attacks"

Also in Italy there are lots of sexual scandals in the Italian fencing team. I am glad is coming out, it has been going for years

This is the biggest reason I stopped training and focused on my career. Fortunately I'm a coach part time now and am able to help get things straight in this sport. Thank you for this video @CyrusofChaos

This is why I have stopped doing sabre and instead focus on epee. No right of way - all the ref has to do is determine if I hit the floor (assuming the strip isn't grounded) and make sure my equipment is legitimate..... I started in sabre and it no longer has any interest for me as a sport at all. You want to made sabre relevant again? Get rid of right of way and except for target area, use epee rules.... NOTE - I know a lot of people who do historical sabre without our modern right of way rules and it's MUCH more fun to do and to watch. Olympic sabre has become what my partner calls "tag with wands."

All sports and might say governmental political agencies are contested and then inhabited by "opportunists" colored by creepy nationalist priorities
There does not appear to be a resolution to what is sleazy human nature of certain individuals
Maybe name and shame is the only thing