Suomen Miekkailu- ja 5-otteluliitto

This message belongs to the discussion about ranking points in mixed (men/women) competitions Dana started in the “kisatulokset“-folder.

I voted for “bad idea” out of an “epee-competition point of view”. There are always enough fencers in epee competitions, so we don’t have the same problem like foil fencers.
You could think, that it would be still a good idea to count the points according to the total numbers of fencers, because more competitors means more points. But it's not that simple. Let's take for example last years Allez kalpamaraton:
I've been on place 7 out of 25 women, 39./ 59 competitors. I would have got exactly the same amount of points, no matter how you count it. So, no problems there, neither for the women who were placed behind me. But: the second placed female fencer would have got 5 points less, and even the winner of the womens competition, although she has been already quite high in the results (about ten places better than the second) would have lost one point!
Counting the points according to the total number of fencers, regardless of gender, would give more points to the men and the same or less to the women. Usually less to those women, who are among the female medal winners - and that's not good at all for the motivation!!

Um...are you assuming men will always win?

Have you ever seen Bori or Hilla doing their stuff with the guys? :D

Seriously, I can't speak for epee, but in foil, the right of way rules mean that size, speed and strength don't count for much - it's more about technique, timing and distance. The top men and women are almost never the fastest or the strongest - they are the cleverest and those with the best technique.

And if we keep the ranking lists separate, I don't see what difference it makes if the women score fewer points total. The top women will still be the top ranked women.

Or am I missing something here?

Regarding the prizes, we have often given separate prizes for men and women, even though it isn't technically allowed under SML rules. If the ladies really want it that way, we could amend the SML rules to allow that practice to continue in mixed competitions.

Personally, I prefer to earn my medals the hard way, by beating the guys and the ladies, but of course that's probably much easier in foil than in epee. Maybe we could do an experiment of counting the points for foil with the total participants and then check back after a year to see how it went?

For me, this is really all about making sure that people who are fencing foil competitions get some points for their efforts. I think in epee it's kind of a moot point, because not only are there enough people to always give ranking points to both genders, but there are so many people that we generally separate the competitions by gender anyway. In addition, most of the epee fencers are clustered in the south of Finland, so there is less of a problem with people traveling a long distance for a competition and then not getting any ranking points.

So, I was really more just thinking of foil and what we could do to make sure everyone gets some reward for their effort, especially for the juniors.

I have to correct Birte about the number of competitors in epee.

Many times there are not so many competitors in the minijunior age classes (15 years and younger). The separation of the competition by gender is therefore sometimes a really bad idea, and most of the competitions are mixed. The allmost only exceptions are internationala competitions. If there would be more fencers, the separation would be done also in national competitions.

If a competition is mixed, I see no points in giving the ranking points separately. Women (or girls) should get their points based on how they did in the competition. It can be that some of the women have not fenced against any other woman in the entire competition, so why should she be compared to the women, but not to the men she fenced against.

Birte's example about the ranking points makes sense, if there are approximately same amount of fencers of both genders, and the women get a bit lower results than the men. The promlem emerges, when there are large differences in the number or level of fencers.

Example: Let's say there are 15 fencers of which four are female. Those four end in the places 3, 12 and 15. if the points were calculated separating genders, they would get points 6, 3 and 1. If the points were calculated from the mixed results, the points would be 18, 4 and 1, so the difference would be significant. The mixed points bring better out the level of each fencer.

Because most of the competitions are mixed, so are the ranking lists for the age 13 years and younger. The 15 years ranking lists are separate, since there are annual separated competitions (such as the Nordic Championships).

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