Central Collegiate Fencing Conference Championships & More

[Melensdad]

4 of "my kids" fencing varsity in the CCFC Championships this weekend.

And 1 of my youth fencers won the Silver Medal today in the Queen City Regional, which earned her national points to compete in the Summer National Championship competition later this year.

And 3 of my Purdue fencers won medals at a local event at the Indianapolis Fencing Club.

Not a bad weekend. So far. There is more fencing Sunday.


Purdue, SILVER medal!
And also Purdue BRONZE medal!

Purdue, BRONZE medal!

Aubrey, Conner, Evelyn and Sal are varsity fencers who compete in the CCFC Championships this weekend

Lara won SILVER MEDAL in the Y14 Women's Saber event at the Queen City Regional.

 

[tommu56]

 

[Melensdad]

For the record, the girl who got ejected from the tournament and her supporters, are effectively being censored by USA Fencing.

USA Fencing has doubled down on trans-inclusivity.

USA Fencing blames an FIE (international rule making body) for ejecting the fencer. The FIE rule says that if the fencers are lawfully (under association rules) allowed to compete then you can NOT refuse to fence the opponent. That rule has been applied to Muslim fencers who refuse to fence Jewish fencers.

But by USA Fencing passing the buck to the FIE what they are really saying is that they want trans-athletes to fence girls because USA Fencing is the ruling body that allowed the trans-athlete to compete.

And this story has EXPLODED and is now being covered internationally.

To my mind, the only solution will be when Trump gets involved. NCAA, in part, gets taxpayer money. NCAA, in part, also funds USA Fencing. If Trump tells the NCAA they will love funding over this, then USA Fencing may get back into a corner because the organization is struggling financially.

ALSO, from the standpoint of the NCAA, collegiate recruiting of fencers relies VERY HEAVILY upon USA Fencing tournament results. The top fencing universities recruit internationally, but MOST of the fencing universities recruit domestically based on tournament results from USA Fencing.

 

[Melensdad]

On a different note, the USAssocation of Collegiate Fencing Clubs championship tournament is this weekend. I have 23 or 24 kids from Purdue making the trip to Pennsylvania to compete. I expect Purdue to come in "middle of the pack" as this particular conference is dominated by several East Coast schools that have full time coaches.

2 of my saber fencers are currently 'seeded' in 2nd and 6th places in this event. So individually we could see a couple Saber Medals, which would be awesome, one of my girls is currently ranked #2 and one of my guys is #6, but ANYTHING can happen in a tournament. In the team events I don't see us standing up as solidly as some of the others. Our Epee fencers are pretty good, but I doubt they have a chance at medals, last year our Women's Epee was one of the best in the country. Our Foil program was really strong last year but we had several top kids graduate.

I am not traveling with Purdue this weekend. It is too expensive for them to pay for me to go with them for an event that requires hotel nights. Honestly I didn't want to go anyway. So it works out that the team saves $ and I get a weekend off.

 

[Melensdad]

 

[FrancSevin]

None of the rulingbodies of any sport, want to touch this. They will stand by and expect the participants to accept gender diversity. Only the action of the participating athletes will have an effect.

If they put up with this crap, it will take root, be accepted, and eventually seem normal.
My hat is off in support of every athlete, male or female, of any sport, that resists this policy.

 

[Melensdad]

None of the rulingbodies of any sport, want to touch this. They will stand by and expect the participants to accept gender diversity. Only the action of the participating athletes will have an effect.

If they put up with this crap, it will take root, be accepted, and eventually seem normal.
My hat is off in support of every athlete, male or female, of any sport, that resists this policy.

USA Fencing is very very very "woke" and they seem to actively defend it.

But when something happens, like this girl taking a knee, they "defer" and "deflect" to an international ruling body to cover their position.

I am one of several moderators for a very large sport fencing chat group. It is mostly competitive fencers, referees, coaches, etc.

Yesterday an adult female athlete posted an article and it was "removed" as SPAM.

I reinstated the article.

It was again removed as spam.

I reinstated the article.

It was yet again removed as spam.

I reinstated the article, now for the 4th posting of it. To prevent it from being removed as "spam" I elevated the status of the woman who posted the article to "expert" so that the spam complaints would be bypassed.

There were several comments, mostly from people in support of trans fencers. Then I left the house for my club. I was gone from about 3:45 to 9pm. During that time the whole thing exploded. Something like a 1000+ views, many very hostile comments. Pretty much hostile toward the woman, who held her ground. The trans supporters were very insulting and threatening (in my perspective). Another moderator, probably for the good of all, DELETED the entire thing.

I think people should be able to actually talk about this stuff. The trans-supporters seem to threaten violence, claim hate speech, etc at the mere suggestion of women who say it is unfair. It is a shame that no civil discourse is taking place.

 

[FrancSevin]

This very action you described is why the athletes cannot count on the ruling bodies to listen to any form of common sense.
They must make the sacrifices to the mod gods throwing, quite literally, their bodies and careers on the despicable gender neutral rules.
It is the only way public sentiment will know and support them.
This abomination cannot be allowed to quietly be accepted.
It must go away.

You know what we haven't seen? An example of a woman beating a pseudo male trans. Why is that?

 

[Melensdad]

You know what we haven't seen? An example of a woman beating a pseudo male trans. Why is that?

We do see that in fencing pretty frequently.

The trans athlete in the Maryland story was a mediocre to poor male fencer, and is now a mediocre female fencer. Finished "middle of the pack" at the tournament.

The trans athletes that I have coached and observed at events are generally new, or newer, to fencing so basically inexperienced. They can pummel new/newish girl. But a skilled female fencer can generally beat them. So it seems like they have a body advantage but lack the skillset. It takes many years to become a highly skilled fencer.

The true test will come when/if a fairly seriously skilled male competitor transitions to female. That fencer will pretty much destroy the field. That is what happed in swimming. That is what happened in Olympic boxing. We just have not seen it (yet) in fencing.

And honestly the NCAA just muted much of the problem since trans athletes can not compete in NCAA fencing. So no scholarships. And USA Fencing has 'cover' because of their age brackets. There are very few "trans" children, and the age brackets pretty much prevent any trans-exposure during "Youth" or "Cadet" age brackets. JUNIOR age bracket is roughly Junior year of High School through Freshman/Sophomore year in college. That is a VERY HIGHLY competitive bracket. It is also the age range when kids turn 18 and are legally allowed to undergo elective surgical procedures to transition. Typically hormone therapy starts a year or 2 earlier. So USA Fencing, due to the way things are set up, and due to some outside factors, is shielded from having parents up in arms because kids are simply not exposed to this stuff. And now that NCAA forbids the trans from competing in NCAA events that mutes it more. So "collegiate club" level, where I coach, is really the most contentious age range for the trans athletes and we see trans-athletes at pretty much every competition, sometimes multiple trans athletes. But "collegiate club" level is not something that makes headlines.

 

[FrancSevin]

It sounds as if the system has this pretty much subdued and under control.
Still; That said,,,;
It is wrong

IMHO.

In individual sports there are Men's and Women's divisions for a reason. We see men entering women's sports as "Trans."
However, we never see "Trans" women competing in men's sports.
There is a completely and inarguable logical reason for that.
Which explains why this concept of what's fair is just wrong.

 

[Melensdad]

It sounds as if the system has this pretty much subdued and under control.
Still; That said,,,;
It is wrong

IMHO.

In individual sports there are Men's and Women's divisions for a reason. We see men entering women's sports as "Trans."
However, we never see "Trans" women competing in men's sports.
There is a completely and inarguable logical reason for that.
Which explains why this concept of what's fair is just wrong.

Just a follow up.

As a boy the guy had a win loss record of 20% 80%

As a girl he has a win loss record of 40-60%

So clearly not a skilled fencer but also shows that there seems to be a correlation between physicality and win ratios an ‘she’ has doubled the number of winning bouts, while still not being particularly competitive

 

[Melensdad]

And now a female "Disc Golfer" refuses to compete against a trans athlete.

 

[Melensdad]

I actually see people on Facebook asking who Stephanie Turner's coach is and with which club she is she affiliated as people want to punish her coach and the club.