Has the Pendulum Swung Too Far?

September 2023

Having been refereeing for almost a half century, I’ve seen the ebbs and flows of how actions are interpreted.

As an example, I was in the infancy of my career when, at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, upstart Fabio Dal Zotto of Italy won the individual gold medal in foil by employing a tactic that took the fencing world by surprise.

Dal Zotto would actually come racing (as in running) down the strip with his arm completely back. No matter what the opponent did and when he did it, Dal Zotto had the uncanny ability to then start extending the arm and foil towards the target.

The referees were flummoxed by the deceptive but effective “attack,” and the new normal for an attack was born.

For the next generation, the accepted determination of the attack was ultra-liberal. Now it was up to foil fencers to master this tactic of “attacking” with their arms back and then basically reacting to the opponent’s action.

Of course, very often this was anything but an attack. It was either preparation or invitation. Assuming the opponent began their threatening action before the bent arm fencer began their forward movement of the arm, the argument can be made that the opponent was attacking in preparation or accepting the invitation to attack.

I remember how saber fencers and referees mercilessly ridiculed foil fencing, as the window in saber was always ultra-tight and now the window in foil was ultra-loose.

As a fencer, I utilized this accepted type of attack, which was anything but an attack, to my advantage. So did most of the top fencers.  My great friend and teammate, the late Jack Tichacek, became so adept at it that he completely fooled most American referees except Emik Kaidanov. I used to say that Jack was not attacking in second intention, but rather “dark ulterior motive.”

Whatever the case, it was clear the pendulum had swung way too far in favor of the bent arm attack.

As is always the case, there is a time when the pendulum swings back the other way. And this occurred after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when the powers-that-be in the FIE decided it was time to clean up the attack.

The pendulum always swings back.

Back in the mid 90s, prior to the Atlanta Olympics, I traveled extensively as a referee with the women’s foil team to the various World Cups. For as long as I had been refereeing, I called the beat/counter beat or beat/parry action in favor of the fencer initiating the beat. While I hadn’t yet heard Lisa Sapery’s spot-on comment that “You can’t parry a beat,” I basically subscribed to that mantra.

Truth be told, while I’m not suggesting I was ahead of my time, the reality was that there was no common application of that action. Some referees called it beat attack. Others said it was a riposte.

All I know is the way I consistently called it. And I will never forget about a bout I refereed at a World Cup prior to Atlanta. In the round of 16, I had a hotly contested bout between France’s Adeline Wuilleme and Russia’s Svetlana Boyko. The left-handed Wuilleme, action-after-action, would initiate with a beat and, time-after-time, Boyko would make a counter beat or attempted parry.

Yes, Boyko was much bigger and stronger as an athlete, and yes, her counter beat or parry was very forceful. Certainly, she received this call from other referees. And, as there was no real accepted practical application for how this action should be called back then, it depended on the referee.

Both Boyko and her coach Ivanov were beside themselves. After the bout, Ivanov went around the venue criticizing my officiating to anyone who would listen, while making hand motions to mock the size of my nose.

Well, size of my nose aside, I called it consistently, so they had plenty of time to adapt.

In the last decade, the pendulum has correctly swung to determine that when there is an action with one blade meeting, the priority goes to the fencer who initiated the beat. Well, better late than never.

The pendulum always swings back.

This brings me to what I perceive as a pendulum that may have swung in the wrong direction.

I’ve been serving as head referee for both the Ivy League Round Robins and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championships. I’ve been very fortunate to have had loaded referee cadres, replete with referees who are on the FIE list or who are assigned deep into Division I NACs. Basically, the top of the USA Fencing food chain.

The common theme I’ve seen is that while reviewing calls with video replay, the referees sometimes appear to be overanalyzing the actions. 

I’ve always been a big believer that replays should be watched at 100% speed. Of course, when you slow it down to, let’s say, 70%, it can completely change the flavor of the action. Haagen Dazs ice cream used to say on its containers, “allow to reach room temperature in order to achieve the full-flavor bouquet.” In my opinion, when you slow down the video speed, you don’t get the full-flavor bouquet.

Now, when you slow it down, every single “mistake” is magnified. And this can have the effect of making the wrong fencer appear to have the right-of-way. Now, the word “mistake” was not used flippantly. I use that because that’s what referees are now looking for.

Instead of focusing on the full-flavor bouquet of the action at real speed, the referees are looking excruciatingly hard to identify mistakes.

I’m not saying mistakes don’t happen and that referees shouldn’t look for them. And, of course, it always takes two to tango. What difference does a mistake make if the opponent doesn’t take advantage of it?

What I am saying is that the new normal of looking for the most minute mistakes, and at 70% or slower speed, is potentially making the wrong fencer appear to have earned the right-of-way.

Certainly, watching the replay at slower speeds can help identify infractions, timing of actions and the aforementioned mistakes. And, I’m not saying that referees should only watch the replay at 100% speed. I’m just saying that Haagen Dazs was on to something when they asked consumers to achieve the full-flavor bouquet.

While I fully respect the current group of referees and accept that how they are using the video replay is the new normal, I still think the pendulum has swung too far in this area.

I reached out to Greg Massialas, the current National Men’s Foil coach, four-time Olympic Coach, three-time Olympic athlete, Olympic referee and USA Fencing Hall of Famer. 

Greg said, “Slowing it down (the video) can certainly change the flavor of the action. Most of the coaches believe that. The high-level referees understand that. I believe that referees can be distracted by slowing things down and often lose perspective of the action being one sequence and breaking it down. Younger referees are looking for stuff as opposed to seeing the common sense of the action. But I do think there is a certain amount of this (mistakes due to slowing down the video) even at the highest level.”

Personally, I feel the problem is exponentially worse in saber, as you have both thrusting and cutting with lighter blades moving at warp speed. Yury Gelman, former National Coach, six-time Olympic Coach and USA Fencing Hall of Famer had this opinion:

Yury said, “This is nothing new. From the very beginning of the use of video, I saw calls completely reversed because of the slowing-down of the video speed and the referees looking for mistakes. I agree with you that the flavor of the action is often lost at 70% speed. When you slow down the video and just look for mistakes, many times the wrong fencer gets the call. Many referees don’t understand the tactical aspect of the phrase, and when the video is slowed down to focus on mistakes, you could have a simple counterattack incorrectly appear to gain the right-of-way. I believe that many of our referees absolutely are looking for the wrong thing when watching the video at 70%.  The majority of the actions should be watched at 100%.”

The pendulum always swings back. Hopefully, it will in this specific area in the near future.