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Three Major Competition Changes : New Rules for the Nationals
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Date
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May 1942
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7
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2
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en
Three Major Competition Changes
NEW RULES FOR THE NATIONALS
By Miguel A. de Capriles
Three changes in competitive plans for the 1942 National Championships are of interest to every fencer who may plan to compete. Here the chairman of the A. F. L. A. and I. C. F. A. rules committees analyzes the meaning of these changes and their historical background.
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THREE major changes have been approved by the Board of Governors of the A. F. L. A. for the 1942 national championship tournament: (1) the qualifying rounds for the team events have been eliminated, so that all clubs are automatically qualified for the championship competition; (2) the number of automatic qualifiers has been increased in the individual event; and (3) in both team and individual epee, bouts will be fought for a single touch with electrical weapons.
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Team Championships
Until 1939, the national championship tournament consisted only of four individual events (men's foil, epee and sabre, and women's foil). The corresponding team events were held in New York during the regular fencing season, so that in fact competition was limited to clubs located on the Eastern seaboard. Although the records indicate several victories by teams from Boston, West Point, Philadelphia, and Washington, the great strength of teams was concentrated in the New York clubs. Beginning with 1932, individual stars in the various weapons appeared in the nationals from the Mid-West and Pacific Coast areas. By 1936 there was a considerable body of opinion that favored expansion of the national championship tournament to include team events, so that the latter would become truly national in character by affording to fencers from all parts of the country the opportunity to compete in both the individual and the team championships. The “composite team” rule, which had been in the books since 1933, would make it possible for fencers of the same division to band together into a divisional team, even though they might belong to separate clubs.
The team events first appeared in the “gala week” in 1939, when the national championship tournament was staged at the San Francisco World’s Fair. In order to keep the number of possible competing teams within reason, Rule 83 was adopted. This rule restricted the several divisions to two teams in each weapon, and limited each club to a single representative team in the championship rounds. Both the 1939 and 1940 team championships were highly successful. Although the New York teams predominated in all weapons, competition was keen. In those two years, the Illinois division presented strong epee teams including Righeimer, Tingley, Siebert, and the Corbett brothers; and Southern California showed powerful combinations with Boyd, Linkmeyer, Carfagno, Corbin, and Doughty. The Cuban National Team added zest and exceptional strength to the 1940 championships. The future of team events in the national championship tournament looked bright indeed.
Then came the great disappointment of 1941. The two qualified teams from New York were the only entries in epee; in foil and sabre, only one other team appeared, and it was badly outclassed. Thus the metropolitan championships, which operated as the New York qualifying competition, had presented a stronger field than the national championships. Except for the agreement of the New Yorkers to meet with four-man teams, the championship matches would have been anti-climatic.
What to do for 1942? The board of governors thought it wise to keep the team events in the “gala week,” so as to give all divisions an opportunity to be represented; but something had to be done to strengthen the field of team competition. This is the rationale of the new regulations. Although a club may still be represented by only one team, there is no restriction on the number of teams that may be entered from any division. In this way, even if the divisions outside of New York do not choose to be represented, it will be possible for several New York clubs to enter teams, just as they do in the metropolitan events.
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Automatic Individual Qualifiers
You may recall that in an earlier article in THE RIPOSTE, I discussed the arguments in favor of increasing the number of automatic individual qualifiers beyond the original provisions of Rule 82. In line with those arguments, the board of governors now permits all three medalists of the previous year and all former national champions to enter the championship competition directly. Opinion in the board was generally favorable to the first extension of the privilege of automatic qualification (to the three medalists of the previous year). There was a good deal of sentiment for a further extension to take care of cases like that of Snyder, who finished fourth in foil last year after tieing for first, but after thorough discussion of the merits of this particular case and of its effect upon the future, it was decided to limit the privilege to the actual medalists.
Opinion was sharply divided on automatic qualification of former national champions. Although the board recognized the desirability of the rule in principle, there were fears that the championship competition might become too unwieldy. Upon examination of the records, however, it was discovered that in sabre there were only three active national champions: Armitage, Huffman, and Muray, and two of the three had been medalists in 1941. In foil there were also three: Every, Lewis and Cetrulo, and the last two were in the armed forces. In epee there was a larger field, but Heiss, Sands and Siebert were in the Army. In all weapons, of course, there was Leo Nunes, although his recent appearances had become less and less frequent. In women’s foil, only Miss Mayer, Mrs. Vince and Miss Mroczkowska were active. Consequently there seemed to be no danger of overcrowding the championships, at least for 1942, and it was decided to go ahead.
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One-Touch Epee
You will recall the lively controversy that was carried on last year in these pages about the relative merits of one-touch and multiple-touch epee. On the one side was the argument that luck played a large part in the decision of one-touch bouts; that two- or three-touch bouts required a higher degree of technical and tactical skill, so that the champion truly proved his class. On the other side (which I prefer), it was stated that one-touch bouts give the epee its characteristic individuality as a weapon, more nearly reproducing the conditions of the duel; that “luck” can be minimized by large pools and the electrical weapon; and that there is no point in deprecating the achievement of the winner, as long as competitive conditions remain equal for all contestants.
Historically, of course, we had one-touch epee for forty years, up to and including 1931. Three-touch bouts were introduced in 1932 because the Olympic Championships that year were to be fought for three touches. Last year, a proposal to return to one-touch epee won a close vote in the board of governors, but was revised upon complaint of a majority of the ranking epee fencers. A compromise was adopted which favored one-touch bouts for local events but retained three-touch bouts for the nationals. Thus we have had ten years of three-touch epee in the championships.
The 1942 regulations bring back one-touch epee into the national championships. Yet, curiously enough, the balance in this controversy was swung, not by technical argument or historical sentiment, but by the exigencies of the war. Scarcity of epee blades, priorities on electrical materials, and the great expense engendered by breakage, all conspired to induce the Board to adopt a policy of conservation of our electrical equipment. Statistical studies conducted during the past two years had conclusively shown that, from the point of view of the electrical weapons and control apparatus, the amount of damage or breakage in one-touch bouts was but a small fraction of what might normally be expected in three-touch bouts. Fencers who average two or three broken blades per competition found that they could go through several one-touch events without damaging their equipment seriously. Even last year, the Bout Committee was willing to admit a contestant into a one-touch electrical epee competition if the fencer appeared with but a single weapon, instead of the minimum of two which is required for three-touch events.
Faced with the alternative of either giving up the multiple-touch system or abandoning electrical weapons altogether, the majority of the multiple-touch advocates chose to fence epee for one touch with the electrical weapon. The technical arguments against the one-touch bout paled into insignificance against the prospect of going back to the human frailty of ordinary judges! Of course, the advocates of one-touch epee were quite happy: for most of them, one-touch epee with the electrical weapon is just about perfect.
Thus, in a roundabout manner, we have achieved fairly general harmony of opinion as to the return of one-touch epee this year. Shall we point to this as another example of national unity for the duration?
