FIE Ranking Points for Individual and Team competitions – Part 1
With all eyes set at the 2012 London Olympics ahead, every sports-person is concerned about his/her ranking at the qualifiers in order to, either, make it into the mega gala or else to be pooled among world’s top ranked teams or fencers.
Same goes with fencing as the qualifying nations will be allowed to send eight fencing individuals in each weapon discipline to the mammoth competition, as per the criteria set by the International Fencing Federation (FIE).
However, the question that hits to mind is how these rankings are evaluated and what points are awarded for the different types of fencing competitions held all over the world.
First, it is necessary to know about the categories of the Individual and Team competitions in this sport.
According to the FIE, the types of Individual competition include Satellite (SA), World Cup (A), Grand Prix (GP), Zonal Championship (CHZ), Official (OF) and World Championship (CHM). Fencing’s team discipline consists of the events namely Official, World
Championship, Zonal Championship and Team World Cup (EQ).
For each of the above mentioned competitions, there is a specific points-scoring formula for the winners as well as the rest of the performers that later help determine the Individual or Team’s standing at the end of the event or the one-year season.
Both Individual and team events have different amount of points awarded for the same competition. These are discussed as follows:
Individual competition
In general, the highest points are given to the winner and later a proportionate diminishing trend is found in points for the rest of the position takers. These can be elaborated as:
World Cup (A)
The points-awarding mechanism in this competition for Individuals is calculated with a six-point difference from the first position holder that continues to decrease as we move down the results list.
This six-point difference continues with a multiple of two (2) for the number of fencers (n) to be awarded (2xn) until a particular limit, after which the six-point gap is changed into a half-point gap, depending amount of the frequency of participants in
the event.
Remember, the doubling of number of fencers (n) begins from the third position.
For World Cup, the winner is awarded 32 points, followed by 26 = (32-6) for runner up where n = 1, 20 = (26-6) for the two third position takers (n=2), followed by 14 points awarded to fencers n=2x2=4, which means 14 points will be given to 5th
to 8th position winners and so on.
Grand Prix (GP)
The top performer of Grand Prix earns 48 points followed by the same 2xn mechanism with a nine-point difference.
It means that the runner-up will get 39 points, followed by 30 points for the two bronze-medal winners, 21 points for 5th to 8th position (2x2=4), 12 points for 9th to 16th seeded fencer (4x2=8). From here onwards,
the decreasing trend is changed from minus nine to minus half.
Therefore, the 17th to 32nd seeded (8x2=16) fencer of the competition will earn 6 (12x1/2) points and so on until it becomes zero (0).
Official (OF)
Under this competition, there are no points awarded to any of the participant fencers.
Satellite (SA)
In the competition, the title winner receives 4 points and a minus 1 mechanism continues with the above stated method of decline.
Apart from the above mentioned events, the ranking-points rule for the World Championship and Zonal Championship in the individual fencing and for the four types of team competitions will be described in detail in the next part of my article.
Article continued in FIE Ranking Points for Individual and Team competitions – Part 2
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