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Title
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The 1940 Intercollegiate Fencing Championships
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Date
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December 1939
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volume
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4
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issue
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7
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pages
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1, 13
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content
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en
THE 1940 INTERCOLLEGIATE FENCING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Report of I. C. F. A. Committee of Arrangements
The Intercollegiate Fencing Association, faced with its perennial problem of how to make room for the prospective new members who are constantly knocking at its door, has again undertaken to revise the form of competition under which its annual Championships will be contested.
Originally conducted as a straight round-robin of team matches, the Championships in the past have also been broken down into divisional qualifying groups, each of which fenced its own round-robin to determine which teams and individuals should go to New York to compete in a round-robin finals, while at other times qualifications for the finals have been based upon the season’s record in dual meets between member colleges in each division. Subsequently, from 1932 to 1934, team championships were carried out on the basis of preliminary and secondary elimination rounds, with four teams in each weapon qualifying for a round-robin finals, the individual championships being conducted as separate events run off in preliminary, semi-final, and final pools.
With the exception of the complete round-robin, which could conveniently accommodate but six teams, each of these methods had its own shortcomings, and beginning in 1935 the Association experimented with a new system under which each college designated its representatives in each weapon as Class A, Class B, and Class C, respectively. The event consisted of three round-robins in which all Class A fencers met all others so designated, the Class B fencers met only the Class B competition, and the Class C group was similarly segregated. The team championship in each weapon was awarded to the college with the highest total of bouts won in all three classes, and the Three-Weapon Championship was based on the total number of bouts won in all of the team events. Individual championships were by classes, gold, silver, and bronze medals being awarded to the first, second, and third-ranking fencers in Class A, silver and bronze medals to the first and second place winners in Class B, and bronze medals to the winners of the Class C events.
Criticism of this form of competition can be summarized under four principal headings. In the first place, it permitted a fencer of lesser ability, because he was pitted only against those of lesser ability, to win as many or in some instances even more points for his college than his more competent teammate who was matched with the best fencers from all of the other competing colleges. Conversely, a competent fencer, who under this scheme might be forced into one of the lower classifications because one of his teammates happened to be of equal or slightly greater ability, was prevented from giving his team maximum assistance by beating Class A men of other schools and, furthermore, was arbitrarily eliminated in advance from a chance to compete for the Class A individual title, the recognized Intercollegiate Championship.
A third criticism of the competition in vogue during the past five years was that it made possible, if not inevitable, an anti-climatic ending. For many years, the Intercollegiate Fencing Association has made much of the final evening of its annual championship events, and a contest in which it was possible and even usual for most of the team championships, at least, to have been settled before the final session commenced presented a constant threat to maximum enjoyment of the affair by the Association's guests.
Finally, this form of competition has required at least 594 bouts and might involve as many as 603, a fact which has absolutely precluded any possibility of adding to the Association's present membership of twelve colleges.
It was to correct these faults in an otherwise satisfactory contest that the I. C. F. A. Council at its Annual Meeting in October adopted a new form of competition which in a measure is a combination of the form of individual competition of the period 1932–1934 and the 1935–1939 method of grafting the characteristics of team competition on a structure essentially suited to individual events.
Under the new plan, as adapted for twelve colleges, the fencers in each weapon will be divided among six preliminary six-man pools. In each such pool a round-robin will be fenced to qualify three contestants for the semi-finals, which will be conducted on three strips of six. From the semi-finals, a total of nine fencers will qualify for the finals, which again will be fenced as a complete round-robin.
Each bout won in any round will count as a team point towards the team championship both in that weapon and in the three-weapon competition. Every fencer, therefore, will start with an equal opportunity to win points for his team against the best that the competition has to offer, although the more competent performers who continue throughout the three rounds of the event will obviously turn in the better records. All starters, furthermore, will have a chance to win the individual Intercollegiate Championship title or finish as medalists in the real championship competition, for the individual place-winners, of course, will be those who finish first, second, and third in the nine-man final rounds.
Under this plan, it is inconceivable that any title, team or individual, will be clinched until the finals are well underway, a fact which will lend drama to the Championships and more than compensate for any possible loss which may be considered to result from the impossibility of stimulating dual-match team competitions as was the practice under the former plan. It is expected, furthermore, that the ever-changing score-board, a feature of the old plan which has been retained, will continue to keep uppermost in the minds of the spectators the idea of team competition, in spite of the fact that fencing, however conducted, is basically a duel between individuals.
In arranging the organizational details of this year’s Championships, it has been decided to request each college to classify its team members as before, not because they will be so classified in the competition, but simply to assist the Bout Committee in seeding the contestants in the make-up of the preliminary strips. Seedings will also take into consideration the necessity of keeping members of the same team from meeting one another until the final round, in which matches between teammates will be fenced off before the contestants involved meet the representatives of any of the other colleges.
It has tentatively been decided that substitutions will be permitted in any round, but that substitutes may not compete for individual prizes and, in determining the individual record of a man substituted for, it shall be assumed that he has lost all bouts fenced by his substitute.
This form of competition will require only 513 bouts, exclusive of possible fence-offs for first place, and by altering the number and arrangement of pools, and the number of qualifiers from preliminary and semi-final pools, can be adjusted to accommodate at least fifteen colleges without increasing the number of bouts to be fenced beyond a maximum of 560. Before acting upon any application for membership, however, the Association will naturally await the outcome of this year’s experiment, the second change in its competitive system in five years.
