Welcome to the pages for you, juniors and also for your parents and supporters.
We aim to bring you everything you need to know to succeed and have a great time in the Under 20 age group as that is how a junior is defined.
You may have graduated from the U17 (Cadet) scene or be totally new to fencing from school or having joined a club. No matter how inexperienced or experienced we hope you will find what you are looking for here.
On this page we have an overview of the junior scene.
You will also find specific information for Women and Men (coming soon)
Overview
Junior fencing – an explanation
This page deals with the following aspects of a junior’s fencing life:
Rankings
Competitions
Competing for your Home Country (coming soon)
Competing for Great Britain (coming soon)
Rankings
What is my ranking?
Before understanding how it works you probably just want to know where you are ranked.
The individual ranking pages links below might break or not be the most recent rankings so you can always go to the main British Fencing Rankings Page and click on the relevant tile for you – Junior Sabre is on the second column from the left hand side.
But how does the ranking system work?
Understanding the ranking system can be quite tricky so we have tried to simplify it with a summary of the main points. You should, of course, always refer to the original documents to get the full detailed and definitive picture.
Here we have tried to bring together the information contained in 3 documents on the British Fencing website and to make them relevant to cadet sabre only. We have reproduced parts of those documents to help you get to what you need to know quickly and easily. Some tables are reproduced here for convenience.
Multipliers for 21-22 Cadet and Junior Domestic Ranking events
How do I work out the points I get for a domestic competition?
For domestic ranking events in the Junior 2021/2022 season the following Ranking Multipliers will be used:
| Multiplier | Event/Format |
| 100 | ‘B’ BRC’s using two rounds of poules and Direct Elimination (with or without repechage) |
| 175 | A’ BRC’s |
| 180-225 | Nominated Senior Opens |
| 200 | Junior Championships |
| 225 | Under 23 National Championships |
| 300 | Senior National Championships |
Ranking points for a result are calculated by the taking the placing points and multiplying by a number – ‘the Ranking Multiplier’ – that represents the relative value of the competition. See points table below and the examples.
So, if you were at a ‘B’ BRC and came 7th you would calculate your points like this:
The Ranking Multiplier is 100 (from the first table above – this related to how difficult the competition is)
The placing points or multiplication factor are taken from the pink and white table. For 7th this is 11.80
So you multiply 100 x 11.80 = 1,180 points in total.
If you were at an ‘A’ BRC and came 12th what would your points to be?
So, let’s see. 175 x 9.19 = 1,608.25 and you always round down the final answer so you gained 1,608 points.
Does it matter where you come?
To get more than one point you have to come in the top 80% of domestic competitions.
So, say there were 24 and you came 19th you would only get one point (to show you were there)
But if you came 18th you would get 100 x 6.74 = 674 points.
How about for International events?
For International ranking events the multipliers are:
So what you do is exactly the same as for domestic competitions but using this table to work out the number to multiply by your placing multiplier.
Just beware, you have to come in the top 70% at an international competition
For example, you were at a Cadet international and have been told/seen that the multiplier is 400. The competition has, say, 80 fencers. You can work out that the people setting the multipliers see this as ‘Normal Multiplier’ .
If you came 50th you would calculate your points by taking the 400 and multiplying it by 3.58 – the number you see against that placing in the table 3.7 in the BF ranking scheme.
So you would have a total of 400 x 3.58 = 1,432 points. Great.
So, how is this applied in practice to get your ranking points?
Looking at the table above, let’s say you came 3rd at an A1 BRC event.
Your first multiplier is 14.76 which you times by 175 which is the strength multiplier for that competition. So you will see, when you find the intersection of 3 and 175 that your points would be 2,583.
What if you came 128th in the strongest international competition?
Your first multiplier would be just 0.52 for 128th but you would multiply that by 1600 – which you see on the far right at the top of the table. So again, finding the intersection of 128 and 1600 you come up with 832 points.
But check you are in the top 70% as that is the cut off for international competitions. Otherwise it’s just 1 point.
What if I come below 128th?
There are multipliers for those places too as you will see in the tables below and in the example grid above.
Beware- you have to be in the top 70% of the fencers completing the competion. So, for example, if there were 200 fencers and you came 140th you would get points but if you came 141st or below you would not. Except you get one point to show you took part.
Points cut off
To score more than one point you need to:
- Come in the top 80% at a domestic competition
- Come in the top 70% at an international competition
Beware
Warning: Please note that BF have said: “Due to the continued impact of Covid on venue availability, travel and competition calendars, BF reserves the right (for both domestic and international events) to change the event and the indicative multipliers if events are cancelled or rescheduled, significantly restricted in size (in comparison to the ranking lists) or fall outside of the expected competition standards.”
Warning: The ranking system states that a change of between -200 and +200 can be made to international multipliers.
Competitions
There are quite a number of junior specific competitions which count towards junior points. There are other competitions in which juniors can compete such as all the U23 and Senior competitions. Basically you can compete at higher age groups but not lower ones. So a Junior cannot do a Cadet competition but a Cadet can do a Junior one. Only Veterans can do Veterans competitions, for which you have to be 40+ etc in the year of the competition.
There are national ranking competitions – called BRC’s – British Ranking Circuit and you’ll no longer have the Leon Paul Junior Series unless you are also a cadet (in which case see the cadet page for more information). And on top of those you should probably be looking at the senior opens to gain more competition experience and a greater variety of fencing.
What’s the difference between an ‘A’ BRC and a ‘B’ BRC?
An ‘A’ BRC carries a multiplier of 175
A ‘B’ BRC carries a multiplier of 100
So the ‘A’ one gives you potentially a lot more points for the same placing. 3500 for first compared to 2000 for the ‘B’ competition.
Are the formats the same?
No. The ‘A’ BRC’s all have poules followed by Direct Elimination following an internationally standard format. As some stages you might get a second chance by going through another set of DE’s but this is rare. It is called repechage.
The ‘B’ BRC’s can have various formats including multiple rounds of poules to give the fencers more time on the piste.
Which competitions should I do?
To see which competitions are available and which are appropriate you probably need to start with the British Fencing GBR Calendar page which has been recently created and is a very useful tool. The Junior calendar shows events for both Male and Female fencers in one calendar but you can filter it to see just Male or just Female though the majority of events are held on the same weekend but either on different days or with different check in times.
There you will find information on selection dates, multipliers for ranking points, selection points (the date of the rankings as at which the selectors decide who to select), location of the competition.
There are currently no links direct to the entry forms for the domestics competitions which is why we have put together our own calendar, searchable for junior events and which should have the links you need for domestic entries.