Fencing EFC European Olympic Qualifier 2024

[Makedonas 2,239]

I've discussed it many times here to the point where I think people are tired of it, but since we are staying on this topic, it is absolutely ridiculous that Despina Georgiadou is unable to qualify for the Olympics as a top 5 fencer because Greece doesn't have a good third fencer.

 

If she was number one for Greece, she'd qualify. If she was number three for Greece, she'd qualify. But as number two? No.

 

Why do the NOCs qualified for the team event get to send three fencers to the individual competition, but all other NOCs are capped at one fencer?!

[Makedonas 2,239]

Of course as a Greek I am bitter about it, and I feel I have every right to be. I'm sure many of you in my position would also feel this way, I mean some of you even feel this way about fencers ranked much lower who had opportunities to qualify and didn't. Georgiadou really had no chance to qualify unless she was ranked 1 or 2 

 

Greece hasn't won a fencing medal since 1896, it's not like we are some fencing powerhouse. Georgiadou winning an Olympic medal could honestly change the sport in the country. Don't those in charge want to grow the sport, or they just want to keep it amongst the same big countries?

 

I guess that's how it is being a medium-sized European country, it's just so much harder to get Olympic quotas in many sports where there are few spots reserved for Europeans. Not big enough to consistently compete with the likes of Germany, France, Italy etc., and not small enough to get all the universality/tripartite places...

[Cinnamon Bun 911]

2 hours ago, Jur said:

26th in the world wouldnt give you a quota in taekwondo, artistic swimming, judo, boxing, any team sport or most of the sailing classes

In sports such as boxing, sailing and a lot of the team sports you get multiple chances to qualify so if 26th in the world didn't qualify they'd have no room to complain. In terms of artistic swimming, judo and taekwondo there are too little quota spots given to those countries as 26th in the world should qualify to the biggest event for each of those sports. Golf, Tennis, Table Tennis and even Beach Volleyball to an extent are able to get the 26th best in the world to the Olympics, Fencing should be no different given its format. But this all wouldn't need to be said if the IOC had increased the athlete quotas by 1000-1500. 

[Makedonas 2,239]

2 minutes ago, Cinnamon Bun said:

In sports such as boxing, sailing and a lot of the team sports you get multiple chances to qualify so if 26th in the world didn't qualify they'd have no room to complain. In terms of artistic swimming, judo and taekwondo there are too little quota spots given to those countries as 26th in the world should qualify to the biggest event for each of those sports. Golf, Tennis, Table Tennis and even Beach Volleyball to an extent are able to get the 26th best in the world to the Olympics, Fencing should be no different given its format. But this all wouldn't need to be said if the IOC had increased the athlete quotas by 1000-1500. 

But in fencing there is the ranking, so technically there are many chances to gain points towards an Olympic quota, though of course there are too few spots for this.

[Cinnamon Bun 911]

11 hours ago, Makedonas said:

But in fencing there is the ranking, so technically there are many chances to gain points towards an Olympic quota, though of course there are too few spots for this.

Definitely and that's the main problem here, the qualification effectively says "if the 2nd and/or 3rd best fencers in your country aren't good enough for a team quota, then you're not good enough for an individual". Table tennis has a similar qualification system to fencing, yet they managed to offer around 10-15 quotas from the rankings. Yes they have more than double the quotas but they still managed to find room for the individual athletes by not flooding the individual events with three qualifiers from the team event per qualified country. 

Edited April 28, 2024 by Cinnamon Bun

[Epic Failure 359]

As much as the parochial side of me is sad to see Stutchbury miss out, she had her shot and her ranking puts her roughly on the borderline anyway.

 

I feel more for Carlos Llavador from Spain in the men's foil. He's ranked 12th.

 

He's looking likely to miss out. But in the individual event, we'll see 3 Polish fencers and 3 Canadians, none of whom are within the top 30 in the rankings. Nothing against any of those athletes, it's just a weird system.

 

It just seems somewhat perverse that *multiple* lower ranked athletes get to take part in the individual because they are just good enough to get a quota in another event, whereas an individual clearly more talented misses out.

[JoshMartini007 2,767]

48 minutes ago, Epic Failure said:

As much as the parochial side of me is sad to see Stutchbury miss out, she had her shot and her ranking puts her roughly on the borderline anyway.

 

I feel more for Carlos Llavador from Spain in the men's foil. He's ranked 12th.

 

He's looking likely to miss out. But in the individual event, we'll see 3 Polish fencers and 3 Canadians, none of whom are within the top 30 in the rankings. Nothing against any of those athletes, it's just a weird system.

 

It just seems somewhat perverse that *multiple* lower ranked athletes get to take part in the individual because they are just good enough to get a quota in another event, whereas an individual clearly more talented misses out.

Canada has two fencers in the top 30 while Poland has one. In fact, they are all in the top 15.

 

When the options are lower ranked team athletes get to participate or no one participates I personally would go with the former.

[Josh 11,552]

19 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

Canada has two fencers in the top 30 while Poland has one. In fact, they are all in the top 15.

 

When the options are lower ranked team athletes get to participate or no one participates I personally would go with the former.

They’re talking about men’s foil not women’s foil. 

[Epic Failure 359]

I mean, if we're talking about what we would rather see, I'd rather see the top 16 teams battling out in their competition, and the top 64 individuals in their competition!

 

However, if we're talking within the confines of the current quotas numbers, I'd personally get rid of the team event if it meant that the highest ranked 32 in each individual discipline got to take part. Especially when the make up of the team comp is not even just the 8 best teams but based partially on continental location.

[JoshMartini007 2,767]

My apologies, I misread. Llavador is a bit unfortunate, but at the same time he was the big favourite to win here and couldn't convert. It's not like the system prevented him from qualifying because even higher ranked athletes were in the way. He'll be the only person in the top 30 to miss out (excluding nations with more than 3 athletes).

 

 

The team events can be fixed by awarding the continental quotas first then the next four highest ranked nations. This would drop Poland (who was 9th) and Canada while Hong Kong and South Korea would qualify.

Edited April 28, 2024 by JoshMartini007