Rules on league points and team competition
All ranked tournaments across the year contribute to an overall score for League each year. Prizes are awarded for the top positions in each ranking, as well as a Team Prize for the club with the highest collective ranking. There is also an overall “Technical Prize”.
Which Tournaments are ranked?
All of the main Open and Women’s+ tournaments are “ranked” tournaments. Most of these tournaments have their own ranking (e.g. Open Rapier & Dagger) but Open Longsword and the non-longsword Women’s+ tournaments are slightly different.
Women’s+ Rapier & Dagger, Sabre, and Sword & Buckler only have one tournament per year. So instead of having a single tournament “league” score, the three events contribute together to the “Women’s+ Renaissance” category. Apart from the change in weapons, this functions exactly like any other ranking.
Open Longsword has a single rank, and results in Open Longsword A and B will both contribute to the same ranking. However, any competitor who wins a medal in Open Longsword B will be placed in Open Longsword A for the rest of the league. This means that an under-ranked fighter entered in B can still in principle win the league if they go on to medal in Longsword A in later events, but only if they continue to do well in the Longsword A tournaments.
Beginners tournaments are unranked and do not contribute to either an individual or team ranking, as they are intended to be gentle introductions to tournament fencing.
Ranking in the individual competitions
Participants will be awarded league points for each weapon category after each tournament based on their ranking. These scores are added together and form a league competition in each weapon category stretching across all four events. Winners are determined by sum of scores from all events, and prizes awarded at the end of the final event.
1 points for 17th place
3 points for 9th place
6 points for 5th place
10 points for 4th place
14 points for 3rd place
18 points for 2nd place
22 points for 1st place
Ranking in the team competition
The team competition will be based upon the club that you have registered under. The club score for each event will be made up of the top four results from individual members of the club. This can be across multiple weapons, or in one weapon, but each individual can only contribute one score per event, even if entering multiple weapons.
The winner of the team competition will be the team with the most points after all events are concluded.
Tie-breaker
If two teams end up on the same final score after all tournaments the final placing will be decided by the highest amount of highest individual scores. If the amount of highest scores is equal, second highest scores are compared, then third highest and so on.
In case two fencers/teams share the same place after taking into account the amount of highest scores, the size of the tournament where they received their highest scores(s) will be used as the final tie-breaker.
Fencer’s Choice award (‘Technical’ award)
This award is a celebration of quality fencing, community spirit, and skill development.
At the end of each event, all remaining participants will be gathered and given one token to award to another fencer whose performance has impressed them on technical or aesthetic grounds. This could be an opponent they faced, or another fencer they simply watched and appreciated. Reasons for award are left entirely up to fencers but could include eg. especially clean fencing, beautiful techniques landed, consistently clever tactics, or fidelity to source material. Those scoring a significant number of tokens will be recorded at each event, and at the final event one of the top few will be selected by the committee for the technical award.