Suomen Miekkailu- ja 5-otteluliitto

Hi, someone told me that foreign fencers are not allowed to earn points at international competitions (say in Germany or France) but that Finnish fencers are. Can this possibly be true? If so, it doesn't sound very fair. After all, results are posted on the national websites or emailed by the competition organizers. Official results are official results. It seems odd that recognition of those results should depend on the fencer's national origin....what do other people think?

Dana

I presume this is about Finnish national ranking?

I believe the logic behind this is that in Finland a foreigner represents a Finnish fencing club, but abroad his/her national federation.

From Finnish Federations point of view it does not make sense to rank foreigners residing in Finland, because they can never represent Finnish Federation. Due common courtesy and selfish attempt to benefit from 'foreign' fencers by luring them regularly to compete in Finnish Federations competitions, they're admitted points for national ranking from these competitions.

hmmm...well, the unintended side effect though is that under this system we foreigners can't help our Finnish clubs to show strong results so that, for example, the city has a good reason to provide more support for the club and for junior fencers.

And you know, since foreigners are going to be stripped out of the rankings anyway when it comes time to choose a national team, I don't see what difference it makes to strip a foreigner out who has 87 points from local competitions or 687 points from local plus international competitions. Letting the foreigners members show stronger results for their Finnish clubs would be a positive thing all round, I should think.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge what ranking system allows is:

1. Most importantly, it allows competition pools to be seeded according to approximate ability (well, no ranking system is ever going to be 100% accurate), namely to prevent the top two fencers from being in the same pre-round pool. This all is to make random chance less of a factor in competition outcomes.

Now, if the foreign competitors are not given points for international competitors, their initial ranking in a competition is lower than it should be. As a result, the distribution to pools is not as good as it could be. This is not desirable, in my opinion.


2. Secondly, ranking system can be used to select fencers to represent Finland. As Dana noted, this can be done regardless of whether foreign competitors are given points for international competitions or not, as they cannot represent Finland anyhow.


Even though I'm not convinced that foreign members stronger rankings would help getting funding for clubs, I think the first point alone would be enough to warrant changing the system in the next competition rules to include also international competition for foreigners. Additionally, in addition to overwhelming evidence for changing the system, there is hardly any reason to keep the current one.

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Teemu Tokola
Oulun Miekkailuseura
e t u n i m i . s u k u n i m i ( ät ) o u l u n m i e k k a i l u s e u r a . f i

Current system is, that foreign fencers get points from international competitions, as long as there are finnish fencers in the same competition. No finnish fencers = no points.
Doesn't sound very logical to me - don't want to complain about getting points, but it surely isn't said like that in the rules either...

In the US and British systems permanent residents are given the same treatment as citizens. I do think that this issue has not been given any serious thought, as there has been few foreigners before.

However, the world is changing and we are seeing more and more foreing fencers fencing and making an impact to the national tournaments in every weapon. I do think the national federation will have to adapt the rankings system to this.

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-MikaR

Acinaces armorum rex

I'm definitely with Teemu and Mika and for the system that is used in the US and England. It is simpler and serves the purpose of the ranking better. Also the current system sends a pretty funny message to the foreign residents in Finland.

If the rankings are made in the way Birte described, I really would like to hear how on earth we have adopted such an hodge-podge practice. It probably has an interesting history -- at least the end result is funny enough :)

PoP

I agree with Mika and Teemu. The main purpose of the ranking system is to get the fencers in order by their performance mainly in national competitions. For that reason, I see that foreign fencers should have the same right for points as finnish fencers. Not only for the sake of the few foreigner's mental health, but also for everybody's benefit in more equally seeded pools in national competitions.

Niku Kivekäs

I agree with the other agreers. Anyone representing a finnish club should be listed in the ranking.

Actually the confusion with the pools not beeing rightly seeded is more or less nonexistant, due to the fact that there will always be fencers that don't fence that much who'll be in and out whenever, wherever. Both better and worse.

No class, baby no class.

But fair is fair. Let the forigners co-exist.

-m-

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- I'm everything they say I am, I'm so bad baby I don't care

naturally I count myself as "worse"

:D

At this moment Finnish Fencing Association will not change the rules of national ranking. Next update for the rules will be discussed at end of this year.

Tomi Kaleva

Finnish fencing federation invented a new confusing rule: australian fencers get points for international competitions, germans don’t.
I don’t think, that’s funny…

Besides: I thought, the factor for PM-kisat was 1.8, not 2.0!

There is a mistake on women's ranking points. The correct ranking list will be update to web page shortly.

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Tomi Kaleva

Thank you for pointing out the mistakes. As Tomi said the list will be corrected.

Errare humanum est.

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Riitta Michelson
SML/Tiedotus

Nostan tämän keskustelun jälleen listan yläpäähän - onhan sääntöjen muuttaminen keskustelussa mainitulla tavalla otettu ainakin harkittavaksi ensi vuoden kilpailumääräyksiä kirjoitettaessa? Tai mikäli työtä kilpailumääräysten osalta ei ole aloitettu, toivottavasti asia otetaan harkintaan.

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Teemu Tokola
Oulun Miekkailuseura
e t u n i m i . s u k u n i m i ( ät ) o u l u n m i e k k a i l u s e u r a . f i