Cadet Men's Fields Slashed at Summer Nationals 2021
Despite oversubscribed Cadet Men’s events at the May and June NACs, US Fencing imposed an event cap of 210 on Cadet events at Summer Nationals, while the event cap for Junior and Y14 events has been set at 320. US Fencing explained that:
“The National Office and the Tournament Committee looked at the data from past National Championships and determined that the Junior and Y14 events traditionally have higher entries than other events and these were adjusted accordingly.”
This all sounds reasonable and logical, right?
But when we took a closer look at the data, we found that the event caps don’t follow any logical pattern and are pretty arbitrary . Take a look at the data analysis below:
The column marked Increase/Decrease shows the percentage increase or decrease in event capacity compared to the Summer Nationals 2019 fields for each event.
While nearly all the women’s events in Junior, Cadet and Y14 received substantial capacity increases ranging as high as 68% compared to their fields at Summer Nationals 2019, the Cadet Men’s fields have been slashed between 9% and 31% compared to their Summer Nationals 2019 fields. The Junior Men’s Epee and Foil events and Y14 Men’s Foil also have decreased capacity compared to Summer Nationals 2019, but the cuts are less drastic and they do have a higher 320 event cap.
It is no wonder that FP has received a steady stream of messages from irate parents that their their fencers may be locked out yet again from a national cadet event despite being of cadet age and meeting the qualification criteria. Many cadet age fencers without national points have failed to gain access to a national cadet event this entire season. The very low 210 event cap at Summer Nationals raises the ugly possibility that they may be locked out for the entire season, even as Y14 fencers gain access to cadet events through the lottery.
The 2021 NAC data shows very high demand for Cadet Men’s events with extremely long waitlists, but the setting of the low event cap ignores this data entirely.
It is EXTREMELY UNFAIR that Cadet Men fencers are now penalized by an exceptionally high capacity reduction for their events even as events that have demonstrably less demand have had their capacity increased by large percentages.
We strongly urge US Fencing to correct this wrong done to Cadet Men’s fencers and do the following:
increase capacity for Cadet Men’s events at Summer Nationals to 320
double flight the Cadet Men’s events as necessary
plan to pay substantial overtime to referees for overworking them
Note from Editor
US Fencing issued a number of statements and clarifications in the evening of May 25, the most importat being that:
“Throughout the registration period, event caps will be assessed by the National Office and the Tournament Committee and contingencies have been put into place in the scheduling that if more than 210 qualified athletes register for an event, the event totals may be expanded to accommodate qualified athletes.”
You can read US Fencing’s Summer Nationals Registration Update HERE
