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

[JoshMartini007 2,241]

19 minutes ago, copravolley said:

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.

Yeah, if you look at the number of athletes in the past along with the increased number of events we should be pushing around 12,000 athletes.

 

That's around 1500 missing athletes. Even 1000 extra would fix a lot of things.

[Benolympique 1,759]

Récapitulatif Quotas Final (Tournament Qualification Africa)

Épée Men's

Sabre Women's

Foil Men's

Épée Women's

Foil Women's

Sabre Men's

[Makedonas 1,627]

1 hour ago, copravolley said:

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.

I've been a member here for 3+ years, and this might be the best post I've ever seen. I agree so much with everything you said!

[intoronto 4,310]

And then demand each team have 1 male and 1 female athlete, while drastically reducing athletics quotas every cycle (you know the sport that has the most universality.)

[Epic Failure 81]

Yeah, my preference is obviously for an increased number of athletes. Or if we can't do that, to reduce the athletes from other sports first. The fact that track and field get up to 3 per event is a crazy disparity to a bunch of other sports. But I digress...

 

However, in this specific case, if the IOC were unwilling to grant such an increase in quota places in fencing (which would only be about 30 total athletes, but this is the IOC talking...) I'd scrap the team events and have just the individual events.

 

You could still reward strongly ranked countries by giving them more spots in the individual competitions (ie, the top 4 ranked countries get 3 slots, the next 4 ranked get 2 spots etc). So the excellence displayed by countries in the normal circuit is rewarded. And you can still have the continental qualifers. But you don't lose the gifted athlete from a weaker country.

[LDOG 2,199]

Think about any of these smaller european nations that have rather strong sporting performances, Greece, Croatia, Romania, etc 

 

Would they be just as strong as they are if they were instead located in, say, central Africa, south america or the middle of the pacific ocean? 

 

 

[Olympian1010 7,526]

1 hour ago, LDOG said:

Think about any of these smaller european nations that have rather strong sporting performances, Greece, Croatia, Romania, etc  

This is entirely an anecdotal inquiry since qualification isn’t finished yet (and we may need more than one or two cycles of data), but I do wonder if those NOCs will be the ones hardest hit by the quota cuts over the last two/three cycles.

Edited April 28 by Olympian1010

[Makedonas 1,627]

5 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

This is entirely an anecdotal inquiry since qualification isn’t finished yet (and we may need more than one or two cycles of data), but I do wonder if those NOCs will be the ones hardest hit by the quota cuts over the last two/three cycles.

Honestly I think it already has hit us. For example, our athletics and swimming teams we would send to the Olympics used to be bigger or the same size as now, even though now we are way stronger in those sports than we were in say 2008/2012/2016.

 

And look at weightlifting, the reduction of quotas made it so hard and finally for Paris we failed to qualify for the first time in a million years, even though I'd argue Greek weightlifting is slightly stronger now than it was in 2012, 2016, or 2020, when we actually had an athlete qualify each time.

 

Sailing is another one, though we are definitely at a low point right now, this will be our smallest Olympic sailing team since 1980. It's very possible that the quota reduction is a factor for that (but there are also other factors in Greek sailing which I won't get into).

 

And at the same time, we haven't been making any progress in the new sports like breaking, skateboarding, or surfing for example, so we don't get any quotas there.

[Faramir 63]

Not trying to answer to everything (it would take a long post of repeating word for word the same things said yesterday or 1 month ago over and over), just want to point out that:

 

1) Ilieva, even if she fails today, and Llavador are 99% getting in with reallocation;

 

2) the FIE absolutely and rightly wants to keep 12 olympic events,which they manager to get at Tokyo 2021 for the first time, and thinking that the IOC would keep the same number of quotas for fencing if they get rid of the team events is pure nonsense (and, sorry to say it, but it doesn't surprise me that the suggestion come from someone who barely follows the sports). With only 6 events it's way more likely that there'd be a much smaller field.

 

Anyway the IOC also wrote to the FIE making clear that they consider the fencing qualification system a good one. You can read hundreds of page long transcripts of the FIE meetings on their website, in the last few years most of the time was spent discussing first the olympic qualification and then the Russian status.

[Epic Failure 81]

Acknowledging the reality of the situation (that the current system might be the best deal that the FIE is going to get from the IOC) and not being a particular fan of the sport doesn't invalidate someone's opinion of the qualification system as a neutral observer. Discussing a hypothetical preferred system is just that - a hypothetical.

 

Both things can be true - it can be the best realistic system *and* still not a good system.

 

And the fact that the IOC likes it doesn't change that. I'm fairly certain there's a bunch of things the IOC likes that I would consider bad. Which include the qualification systems for a bunch of sports at the games, not just fencing.

 

 

Edited April 28 by Epic Failure