Latest Results

British Youth Championships	Congratulations to Alysia and Mark Both were 4 wins - 2 losses in the pools. Alysia was ranked 13th going into the Direct Elimination round and Mark 16th Sadly Mark lost his first fight against the 17th seed and finished 22nd from 47 Alysia had a bye into the 32 and won that fight comfortably to go into the last 16 where she would meet the no 4 seed. That proved to be a really exciting fight that was only decided in the final seconds. Alysia fenced up to the standard she has reached in training - which is actually quite rare in competition - and with a tactical awareness that some of our GB international fencers would do well to emulate. The first period seesawed one hit at a time to finish with her Scottish opponent (Emma Byatt) in the lead 5 - 4. The second period saw her gain a beautiful wrist hit to make it 5 - 5 after about 45 seconds. For the next 2 minutes she withstood a series of attacks without either fencer scoring and Alysia taking no risks and then landed another excellent wrist hit in the dying seconds to take the lead 6 - 5. Psychologically the effect on Emma was devastating, and it was obvious in the break that she was perplexed and tired. Although Emma levelled the score and an exchange of hits took place to level the score at 9 - 9 there was a sense that Alysia had gained the upper hand as time ticked away to within 10 seconds from the end. It was then that Emma launched a desperate attack, and Alysia hit her whilst retreating with a counter. In the dying seconds It happened again with the same result to make it 12 - 10 with 4 seconds to go. On the restart, Emma launched herself at Alysia - who headed for the back line equally speedily. Alysia hit Emma on the mask as the ref called halt, so the final score remained at 12 - 10. Alysia finished 8th in the U16's and has another year in the same age group. WELL DONE on an excellent performance.
Cambridge Winter Tournament	John made another L16 (14th) but was messed by a failure to seed properly and found himself and another top seed in the same 1st round pool. This unsettled him enough to affect his result. Jos, returning from illness put up a good show until she ran out of energy, 6th. From 32. Heather, 10th had a good run to finish 10th and was close in the final fight. Ellie, 14th, made a fine return to competition and had some very good victories. Alysia also some excellent victories including beating the winner in the poules. Unfortunately she ran into Jos in the last 16 - who had to go to 9-9 before she found a way to get ahead - or who knows? An amazing performance all round, well done.
2007
Miller Hallett London Open International Epee Tournament, 25 11 2006	Jon recaptured his good form and made Last 16 (14th) from a field of 156 among whom were some strong overseas fencers. Jon won 5 of 6 poule fights - including beating last year's winner - who was 3rd this year (and only loosing to a strong Italian. He was then seeded 27 but over came a higher seeded opponent in the L32, before going out to the number 6.
St Niklaas Belgium November 11 2006	We had a good weekend overall although the boys results were a bit below expectations. Jon and Sam have the poules sussed again but now have to recapture their DE form. In Sam 's first three fights he beat last year's winner and the Current Belgian No1 - then the former Belgian no 1. Unfortunately despite being in the low 30s he met the current world vets Champion in the 128 and underestimated him! He fished 65th from 100 fencers and is was still a creditable result. Jon won 4 of 5 loosing to the poule bunny in the last fight??????? He was seeded in the 20's but cooled down too much in the bye he had, and lost a fight he might have won, by 10 - 11, in the 64, to finish 48th. The girls fared better and Alysia was outstanding, she won her first poule fight 5 - 0, despite being frozen to the spot with nerves. She eventually went out to an eventual finalist in the 32, 14 - 15; to finish 28th from 39 and did extremely well for her first overseas comp . Heather also went out by the same score, in the same round, and was 24th Jos was not fencing at her best (technically good, but struggling with distance and timing) and still did enough to finish 7th and might have made the semi had her opponent not been Sonia Tol ! I managed avoid refing on the Saturday as I sounded and looked awful (although I felt OK). On Sunday I looked and sounded better (but felt cr**?) but was lobbied by Kardolus, Monpays and the German team to ref in silence with the sound on the Favero boxes and loud and they promised to behave so I did all the last 8 semis and final on almost hand signals alone and was treated to a fabulous display of fencing??? The L8 was done 1 at a time in the hall and Pfeiffer did a fleche near the end of the piste, it was amazingly fast and he realized at the last moment that was a row of chairs (about 4 meters beyond the end of the strip). He leapt those and whilst in the air noticed a small child between him and the wall about 2 meters of space. He landed and froze to the spot - an amazing feat of athleticism which brought the loudest applause of the weekend??
Eastern Region Youth Qualifiers:	Mark 1st: He really imposed himself on his opponent and gave his best performance yet of technical and tactical fencing Alysia 2nd: another nail biting 15 -14 final. Both qualify for national finals in February, Well done.
Bedford Open	This was our first visit to what turned out to be a super competition. Jos made the final of a small but tight competition, and in a very exciting fight she came back from 7 - 2 down to 14 all in a great display of timing and tactical and technical expertise. She lost out in the priority minute to a well timed counter-attack from her modern-pentathlete opponent
Leicester Open	A much smaller affair than usual as a result of a boycott by the fencers because it was so badly run the previous year. Jos 7th.
	Men's Team wins Eastern Region Championships: Jon, Sam, Wayne. Team 2, 3rd; Mark, Doug, Olly. Team 3 5th;Christiaan Phil Ellie Women's Team 1st Jos Heather Alysia OUTSTANDING
Eastern Region Restricted Championships March 25th 06	Men's Epee 2nd Sam Thompson 5th Wayne Bryan 12th Gavin Reeve Ladies Epee 1st Heather Jarrold 3rd Ellie Dunn 5th Alysia Schuetzle Well done all! What a great performance I gather after the pools we had 1,2,3 in the women's?
Most of 2006 I will put in backlog eventually Sorry?
2006

To start the competition fencers are put in groups (poules – pools). The poules should have an equal number of fencers in them. Of course, the exact number of fencers may not fit equally on to the number of pistes allocated by the organisers. So, poules may contain for example 6 or 7 fencers, or, 5 or 6 fencers.

Competitors are allocated according to their ranking: the first poule get seed number 1,the highest ranked fencer present); the second poule gets number 2 (the second highest ranked fencer present); and so on until each poule has one fencer. The last poule then gets the next fencer and they are fed in ‘the snake’ as below. Some competition programs (they are usually run by computer these days) shuffle fencers so that fencers in the same club are not in the same poule – you don’t travel the length of the country to fight your club mate – although historically it was to stop cheating (See Richard Cohen’s ‘By The Sword’).

Poule fights are to 5 hits in 3 minutes when all fencers have fought all the others the results are collated and index is calculated for each fencer.

Wins are counted first, as a decimal fraction of total possible victories: -

To separate those with equal victories the number of hits received is subtracted from those scored to obtain an indicator (HS –HR).

Fencers are then ranked according to their index, and those with equal indices are sorted by their indicator. If two fencers are sill equal they are separated by who has made the most hits (if they are still equal the computer decides????)

Direct Elimination

For the DE - Direct Elimination or Knockout stage a ‘tableau' is formed, based on the poule round ranking

You will notice that the sum of the two fencers seeding is 1 more than the round.

If you lose you are out; if you beat a higher seed you take that seeding until you lose, or beat an even higher seed?

When you are defeated you are re-ranked in the bit in which you go out. Fencers are put in the order of their original ranking

These rounds are fought to 15 in 3 lots of 3 minutes, with a minute rest between bits.

If there are more than 128 fencers then all those above 128 may be eliminated or have to fight each other to get into the 128 with the others having byes.

When you are defeated you are re-ranked in the bit in which you go out. Fencers are put in the order of their original ranking. So if No 128 beats no 1 then looses in the 64 he will be 64th. No 1 will finish 65th.

If there are 85 you must finish 63^rd? Some of the Men’s Epee Events have 200+ in them?

The finals are the L8 Quarter finals semis etc. Often you get a medal for the L8, and a Prize for coming in the top 3 (there are two 3^rd places.)

The Plate

Some competitions run this for all those who have been eliminated before the points scoring round. It is good experience for those starting competitions and will involve another poule, so you will get double the fencing without the big guns. – You also have to ref it among yourselves.

Poule number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Seed number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Seed number	22	21	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12
Seed number	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33
Seed number	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44