Fencing Qualification to Summer Olympic Games Paris 2024 Road to Paris 2024

[Rafa Maciel 1,365]

14 minutes ago, Epic Failure said:

Apologies in advance to all fencing aficionados and no disrespect intended to the sport itself, but this morning is the first time I've ever delved deeply into the qualification system for the Olympics, and it is surely one of the more insane systems of qualifications out there.

 

 

TBF it's not wildly dissimilar to a lot of the other sports - team qualification gets you entry into the individual event with additional individual quotas available for each continent. That's the same approach that is taken in equestrian.

 

Personally, I think the biggest issue with the fencing qualification process is the fact that if a nation qualifies a team, then all 3 team members get to enter the individual event. This limits the breadth of competition given the relatively small size of the field. I'd prefer to see team qualification give 2 quotas for the individual event - as happens with track cycling - and then awarding more individual quotas at the continental competitions. 

[Benolympique 1,759]

Récapitulatif Quotas Today (Tournament Qualification Asia)

Épée Men's

Foil Women's

Sabre Men's

[Faramir 63]

4 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

I'd prefer to see team qualification give 2 quotas for the individual event - as happens with track cycling - and then awarding more individual quotas at the continental competitions. 

That would mean increasing the total number of fencers so it's not realistic.

 

Also, more direct quotas in a sport highly open to upsets it's just lazy and not meritocratic - this is one of the few olympic sports with a very well established ranking based on a clear world cup/GP circuit where the best alnost always compete against each other.

[Benolympique 1,759]

Récapitulatif Quotas Today (Tournament Qualification Europe)

Sabre Men's 

Foil Women's

[Epic Failure 81]

24 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

TBF it's not wildly dissimilar to a lot of the other sports - team qualification gets you entry into the individual event with additional individual quotas available for each continent. That's the same approach that is taken in equestrian.

 

Personally, I think the biggest issue with the fencing qualification process is the fact that if a nation qualifies a team, then all 3 team members get to enter the individual event. This limits the breadth of competition given the relatively small size of the field. I'd prefer to see team qualification give 2 quotas for the individual event - as happens with track cycling - and then awarding more individual quotas at the continental competitions. 

Yeah, it was the 3 spots per team in the individual that really shocked me.

 

When you add that to the fact that there's a continental quota for a country in the top 16 for a team sport, there's a few teams who are ranked 14th or 15th as a country who are getting 3 fencers in there, when there's an individual who is much higher in the rankings who isn't there. The men's foil, for example, looks likely to have 3 Canadians in it. But not the Spanish guy who is ranked 13th, a good 20 spots higher than any of them. That just seems weird.

 

Personally, I'd do it similarly to cycling - the top ranked countries get 3 spots in the individual. the other team spots get 2, and you increase the global individual spots (based more on the world rankings than continental qualification). So still a strong reward for a great team, a good reward for a solid team and more chance for a talented individual.

Edited April 27 by Epic Failure

[Faramir 63]

Again, if 3 fencers from country X are there for the team event, having only 2 of them compete in the individual event won't increase the spots for individuals unless the total number of quotas is increased - which is clearly not happening.

[Epic Failure 81]

30 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

It's one of the more basic qualification system, the only major change I would make is to make the continental quotas a higher priority in the team event.

 

The bigger issue is that the sport needs more quotas (more so than most other sports).

Definitely a quota issue for sure. The limits they put are weird.

[Cinnamon Bun 397]

3 minutes ago, Faramir said:

Again, if 3 fencers from country X are there for the team event, having only 2 of them compete in the individual event won't increase the spots for individuals unless the total number of quotas is increased - which is clearly not happening.

What do you mean it won't increase the spots. Instead of the teams taking 24 spots they'd only take 16 meaning there'd be 8 spots open for the highest 8 on the world rankings. Table tennis is a prime example of this and the Fie should learn from them when it comes to converting team quotas to individual. 

Edited April 27 by Cinnamon Bun

[JoshMartini007 2,241]

17 minutes ago, Cinnamon Bun said:

What do you mean it won't increase the spots. Instead of the teams taking 24 spots they'd only take 16 meaning there'd be 8 spots open for the highest 8 on the world rankings. Table tennis is a prime example of this and the Fie should learn from them when it comes to converting team quotas to individual. 

The IOC isn't going to give more quotas to fencing so instead of having a ~34 person tournament you will have ~26 person tournament.

[copravolley 58]

1 minute ago, JoshMartini007 said:

The IOC isn't going to give more quotas to fencing so instead of having a ~34 person tournament you will have ~26 person tournament.

The general tendency is that the IOC reduces the number of quotas + introduces some additional preferences for weaker continents and countries. The result is that there are disciplines in which it is more difficult for a European country to qualify for the Olympics than to win a medal. To me this is absurd. I understand the promotion of sports around the world, but then let's just increase the number of quotas in most sports and, for example, throw out weird things like break dancing, surfing, etc.