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Post by fox on Feb 27, 2006 10:58:12 GMT -6
Fencers X and Y are in an epee bout. Both launch intial attacks that miss and find themselves in some very tight in-fighting.
One light goes off for fencer Y.
I wasn't the referee so I wasn't watching so close, but it was on a grounded strip so we will presume for this case that Y landed a valid hit on X.
The referee calls halt and awards a touch for Y.
At the command to halt, X reaches back and grabs the connection between his body cord and the reel cord. At the same time he extends his tip to the referee and asks that his weapon be tested.
The tip is depressed and there is no light. The touch for Y is annulled.
I had thought there might be an issue with touching the body cord/reel cord connection. Is there?
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Post by Dan Gorman on Feb 27, 2006 12:36:55 GMT -6
From t.68 of the rules:
This is usually taken to mean that if the fencer does anything other than stand very still and ask for a test the touch is not annulled. If a fencer were to touch any of his or her electric equipment the touch should stand. If it was a friendly bout, I might make an exception, but not if there were something more than club pride on the line.
Dan
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Post by kd5mdk on Feb 27, 2006 13:13:00 GMT -6
Here's the text of a post I made on fencing.net on this topic:
Touching any part of the electrical equipment (including holding the blade near the guard, where you could easily take your hand off the grip and fiddle with wires or something without being obvious) removes your ability to have a touch annulled.
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Post by Parry Nine on Feb 27, 2006 14:16:01 GMT -6
I would say that the touch is NOT to be annulled. During a tourney, I'd stick to the books just to CYA. Just like kd5mdk said, "Touching any part of the electrical equipment... removes your ability to have a touch annulled." This is exactly what the rulebook says and I'd follow it, regardless of the level of tourney.
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Post by kd5mdk on Feb 27, 2006 17:15:11 GMT -6
On a similar note, at the Masters this weekend a fencer in Epee noted as I inspected his weapon "Weights and springs can go during a bout, but it'd take a real loser to cheat at a local tournament." I replied "It would, but I'm also training my habits." When you get down to it, the preliminary inspection is nearly as much to teach the referee proper procedures as it is to prove there aren't any switches behind the pad at a local event.
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Post by Parry Nine on Feb 27, 2006 19:45:04 GMT -6
Very much so, very much so...
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Post by DavidSierra on Feb 28, 2006 9:02:49 GMT -6
On a similar note, at the Masters this weekend a fencer in Epee noted as I inspected his weapon "Weights and springs can go during a bout, but it'd take a real loser to cheat at a local tournament." I replied "It would, but I'm also training my habits." When you get down to it, the preliminary inspection is nearly as much to teach the referee proper procedures as it is to prove there aren't any switches behind the pad at a local event. Which doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I've seen a couple of instances of it myself.
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Post by schlager7 on Feb 28, 2006 10:18:37 GMT -6
Just like kd5mdk said, "Touching any part of the electrical equipment... removes your ability to have a touch annulled." This is exactly what the rulebook says and I'd follow it, regardless of the level of tourney. What gets me are the people with (literally) decades of competition experience who make this move and still ask for an annullment of their opponent's touch. Maybe to them it is all just part of the game, but it seems a bit cheesy to me. Then, too, at the Houston NAC, one fencer's body cord came loose from the weapon's socket and she asked that her opponent's touch be annulled. When the ref let the touch stand, I watched the fencer's coach swoop in and crowd her pretty good. I was watching from two strips away and was chanting "Card him, Card Him..." I don't think she did.
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Post by jazz007 on Feb 28, 2006 17:43:27 GMT -6
Also this weekend at the Masters, I found a bare wire that could not possibly have been used by the fencer to set off a light (it took serious work for me to get it to set off a light, using two hands!), but could have easily gone off with some infighting or a hard beat or something. The fencer had had one weapon fail for travel, and another for missing a tip screw. He got a good lesson in "what to look for in your weapons before going to strip" that day!
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