First off I would like to say I’m a great fan of bay cups.  It is wonderful that our area has put together such a program.  It allows fencers to compete locally and gain valuable experience.  I would have to say bay cups can be more challenging then many sectional and nation tournaments even.  The collection of talent in our region is amazing. These competitions, even though they are local, must be run with some standards. 

As we gather more and more fencers, competitions become larger and larger.  Many clubs now simply cannot handle the shear number and volume of fencers that show up to an event.  Often they book 3 events into a day without sufficient capacity to handle such things.   Most often it seems now the clubs are more interested in getting the competition done than worrying about the fencers, or often even the rules.  I have been to tournaments that run hours behind.  Often there is insufficient number of referees.  If there are, they are poorly trained and unqualified.  There is no room for fencers or there gear quiet often.   I go to tournaments where the maximum occupancy of a room is marked at 49 people and there are over 100 trying to crowd in there.  This is not safe or productive for the fencers.

So I will get to today I went to a C2 Women’s Foil bay cup at CFA.  I showed up to find almost no room for anyone to put gear.  There also was no place one could even really stand out of the way.  The strips back straight into walls giving people no room to run off.  From the beginning, I’m watching the men’s event before hand and notice people complaining.  There are refs that people are having issues with but nothing happens.  Finally the women’s event starts and only 9 of us are present.  They decide to do one pool of 9 fencers, which is exhausting at best case.  But then they quadruple strip us.  That means we are fencing all our bouts essentially back to back with no rest.  I fenced 3 in a row without time for a drink of water.  While I’m not a veteran I do get tired.  Making fencers compete at this rate is unfair.  I can’t do my best when I’m exhausted from running from one strip to the next.  Heck I don’t even mind two in a row but come on people: quadruple stripping. 

I get to my second bout and the referee is obviously not trained well.  The minimum requirement for a referee is they must be able to keep track of the scores of the fencers.  This ref was constantly loosing track of who had how many touches.  Not only this but she couldn’t judge basic actions.  Further more, I attacked and was parried.  I acknowledged the touch even and the ref still gave me the touch saying it was my attack.  I’ve never had to argue with a ref that it isn’t my point and them still give it to me.  Seriously, this is a problem.  I talked to other fencers and most of them felt there was an issue with this ref.  I asked bout committee for a new director.  I was very rudely (and I mean very rudely) told that the director was fine and no one else had any issues.  Strange thing I had also heard the men complain about her.  I have never been treated so rudely.  When I brought this to the attention of Eric Dew, he even said the director had to be replaced if asked, however maybe they didn’t have one.  They had a room of directors—all they had to do was switch her to directing with another ref.  But wait, they can’t do that cause the men don’t want her directing either.  Needless to say I probably lost my temper a bit more than I should have, but I withdrew from the tournament just on a matter of principle.

Furthermore CFA really needs to improve its treatment of fencers.  When I asked for a change of directors, Dan was excessively rude to me.  When I said I was withdrawing the head of the club then yelled at me as loudly as he could how un-sportsman like I was and what a bad attitude I had.  I’m sorry but his conduct to me was inexcusable.  I’ve run tournaments and directed in them.  Yes, I’ve even run bay cup tournaments and really I know people complain about everything.  I have a lot of sympathy for people running a tournament.  But there is no excuse to be mean, rude and abusive to a person.  Especially when that person is requesting something that is well within their rights.

In addition on my first bout the other fencer reported to the strip without their body cord working.  She was not given a yellow card for this.  When I inquired about it I was told, “It’s not summer nationals”.  She did not have a spare body cord available on the strip as a replacement either.  The rules clearly state that coming to the strip with equipment that is not in working condition is a yellow card.  You also are required to a spare weapon and body cord on the strip in case of equipment failure.

We have rules in this sport that are made up by the USFA.  These are designed to make the sport fair to the fencers.  If each tournament is going to make up its own rules for tournament then it is impossible for fencers to be effective.  And if clubs can’t treat fencers with basic respect then really this is not a sport worth being involved in.

I’m going to be filing this complaint with the baycup.  I’m also going to be discussing this with my USFA Division Chair.  I believe that any tournament with results being turned into the USFA for rating must comply with the USFA guidelines.  If a tournament does not comply with said guidelines then no ratings can be handed out at a tournament.  I am thus going to check the guidelines and confirm my right to a director change.  If I was unjustly denied this right then I will be reporting this action to the USFA and filing a complaint with them. The tournament clearly broke the guidelines by refusing to yellow card a fencer for non-working equipment and I will report this.  I suspect there will be no action taken, as it is my word plus any of the other fencers I can get to confirm these facts against the clubs.  However I’m saddened that I have to take such action.

Sincerely

Jody L Cartelli