USA Fencing is introducing a new points and events structure for cadet, junior and Division I categories beginning Aug. 1, 2026. In this episode of First to 15, Bryan Wendell talks with Tournament Committee Chair Brandon Rochelle about why the change was needed, how the new structure will work and what it means for fencers, parents and coaches.
In this episode, Bryan is joined by Brandon Rochelle, chair of the USA Fencing Tournament Committee, for a full breakdown of the new points and events structure launching Aug. 1, 2026.
They discuss:
For the full explainer, visit this article.
Bryan Wendell 0:00
Bryan, welcome back to First of 15, the USA Fencing Podcast. I'm Bryan Wendell, and if you've been to a national tournament lately, you know a couple of things are true: one, you have a great time, but two, the days can run long, and the system for understanding the points and the rankings that are involved in the national tournament can be a little difficult, especially if you're a new fencing parent, starting august 1, 2026 both of those things are going to change. USA Fencing is rolling out a new points and events structure for cadet, junior, and Division One categories, and it's one of the most significant changes to how we compete in a long time. So today we're going to do a full walkthrough, talk about what's changing, why it's changing, and just important, what is not changing. Joining me is one of the architects of this new system, Brandon Rochelle. Brandon chairs the USA Fencing Tournament Committee. He also serves as a BAUT committee chair for several national tournaments, including the upcoming summer nationals in Portland, and he runs some great regional tournaments across the country. So, Brandon, thanks for being here at the SJCC in Vegas.
Brandon Rochelle 1:01
Thanks for having me. All
Bryan Wendell 1:02
right, let's get right into it. So, big picture, this has been an ongoing process that you and your colleagues have been working on for about three years. What was the actual problem that you identified that you set out to solve?
Brandon Rochelle 1:14
We started to see our national events, in particular, get kind of to an unwieldy size. We are at a size now with the number of strips that we need, and the amount of staff that we need for events that we're kind of restricting ourselves on where we can even go, the projections of where those numbers were growing to put us into an even more limited set of convention center facilities, for example, that our tournaments would even fit into, and summer nationals, you know, once we started crossing the 100 strip mark, that was kind of a little bit of an aha moment for us all, that maybe something's coming down the pike here. So, it's taken several years, as you're talking about, we want to make sure we get this right, but that I think it really started at the national level and seeing where that was growing to, and then obviously, like you said, running some regional events, like I do, you've started to see those get to very, very large as well, going over 1000 people a day, and you start thinking about, well, what's the next step for this? Where do we go from here? And a lot of these ideas came out of those discussions. So I was looking at the registration for summer nationals, which obviously will take place before this new system begins, and I think the cadet men's epidem is up to 430 or something like that, right? So for someone who maybe isn't as familiar with how national tournaments are run. What is the harm of an event that large? Most of it is about the length of day for the competitor, that also goes for our staff too. Honestly, you know, if you have a referee who's starting in those pool rounds at 8am in the morning and you've got 400 people, you're cutting a significant portion of the field after the pools. You know, we do have a hard limit right now on a 256 person de table, so I think we cut 44% something like that, last year, and those numbers, it's really not fair at that point, in my opinion, when you're getting to like a 5050 coin flip on whether or not you can even make the de bracket, so I don't think the intention is to lower the overall size on the numbers of people we have at some of these tournaments, but the in the individual events, we really want to make sure that we're getting it right on making sure that you're at a developmentally appropriate spot, that you have an opportunity to compete at that level as well. That's not about how fast you register or if you get one touch wrong here in the pool, and you're not even making the de round. Some of that stuff is getting a little bit out of control, so kind of looking forward to, you know, right now we're probably at like that max apex, and we just don't want to push it further to like an overall breaking point. So some of this had to start before we got there, and I think we're kind of getting there now.
Bryan Wendell 3:33
Yeah, and that actually, my next question was going to be, why now, and you just answered that, but on top of that, why Cadet Jr. and division one specifically? Because we've got more categories than those three.
Brandon Rochelle 3:45
Yeah, I think here there's a more well-developed structure for some of those events, especially at the junior and cadet level. We have very well developed regional framework now. At the junior cadet level, we've got RJCs, we've got the SYCs, which are happening right now in Las Vegas, where we are, and then the national level tournaments, you've got international, so I think there's a, there's a very clear stair step progression that happens in cadet and junior in division one, the senior level, where there's a lot of different types of competitions already for that. When you get into, like, the veteran category, for example, there's not really a super well-developed local structure for that, for example, gotcha, and you only have a couple of international events a year at that level, so we wanted to try it out, where we had a lot of different data options available to us at different types of levels of tournament, beginning at local, going all the way to international, and cadet junior division one lends itself, I think, very easily to that,
Bryan Wendell 4:37
so just to be clear, vets, youth, and para, anybody who's in those categories that might be listening, they're not affected by what we're going to be talking about today, at least not during this two year trial window. Is that correct?
Brandon Rochelle 4:49
Correct. Yeah, I think there are, you know, there are some important caveats to that. A veteran fencer, for example, may compete in senior level events. True, Trina, they may receive points in some of those events, same. Thing for a Y 14 fencer, maybe fencing up to cadet or even junior. Yes, so they may see themselves in those categories, but the actual list, the Y 14 list, the veteran list themselves. We wanted to go through this data analysis period of having the more well-developed structures with junior, cadet, senior levels to be able to get the data back to say, okay, can we even begin to consider applying this to other categories, and the kind of headline change here, one of the big headlines is that our biggest events are going to split into these two tiers, right, elite and national.
Bryan Wendell 5:30
Can you walk us through how that works and what triggers this split, because it doesn't happen automatically, right? It's once a certain threshold is reached,
Brandon Rochelle 5:38
correct? Yeah, so we started to look at what kind of field size are we looking for, particularly at the top of our domestic tournament chain. So, if you think about a local competition traditionally being first, then a regional event, then potentially a super regional event, or a NAC, and then onward to those athletes who begin to work themselves up in the points list, they begin competing internationally. After that, what do we want that category looking like that's feeding into our international level to make sure that we're selecting the right athletes, while also being developmentally appropriate for all that. So, I think that's why we began to look at splitting senior level, junior level cadet is because they have that kind of that framework they're going through. So, once those national events get into around the 168 person, once you think about cutting out of the pool around on that, you're getting to a direct elimination table of around 128 which is a reasonable size, I think, for everyone that mimics fairly consistently with the international level at their events too, and so making sure that we're putting people in positions that they're going to be similarly put into at the international level, the size of the size of the tournament, the length of the day, so instead of it being kind of this war of attrition against yourself, at like starting at 8am and potentially finishing at 8pm or later, who
Bryan Wendell 6:47
survives
Brandon Rochelle 6:48
trying to mimic more consistently, making the focus about fencing rather than on overall like endurance. This isn't
Bryan Wendell 6:56
-
Brandon Rochelle 6:56
we're not running two marathons back to back here, you know? One marathon is enough, I think, for all of
Bryan Wendell 7:01
us, so 168 is when that threshold starts, and then the elite event is capped at 112 right? So that's going to be this really high level event, and then the national event will be up to 224 right, fencers who were in that event. So walk me through one scenario, so like let's say there's 300 cadet menzepa fencers who are registered for I don't know the October NAC starting this fall, and so that would mean it's past the threshold, right? So there's 112 fencer elite cadet menzepa event and 188 fencer national cadet menzepay event. So that's the same 300 fencers walking into the building and walking out. So how does that result in a shorter day with the same number of people competing at the tournament?
Brandon Rochelle 7:47
Yeah, I think this ultimately comes down to one of my most hated things that we have to do when we plan for a tournament, and that is flighting foil and alley events,
Bryan Wendell 7:54
and flighting, just to explain for those who maybe don't know that term.
Brandon Rochelle 7:58
Yeah, so if you're in a pool and you traditionally everyone may fence at the exact same time. If an event starts at 8o'clock you all fence at 8o'clock When we get to a certain number and the facilities that we have, the space we have available, we don't have the physical space or the staff or the referees to be able to run all those at the same time. So most of the time we don't go beyond what we call a double flight, where one group may fence at 8o'clock and in the example of Foil and Epe, it takes about two hours to run a pool round, so that next group can't start until about 10am and so once you start to look at the people who can for Foil and Epe in particular, if they compete at 8o'clock you've got a second round that begins at 10 o'clock, and then those 8o'clock people aren't coming back until noon or later in order to begin to fence their GES, so that's where we turn into 13 and 14 hour days on some of those scenarios, so it's I think that is really what was a huge part of all of this, is looking at the athlete experience, the coach experience, the parent, the spectator in the referee even experience in all of this to come to these numbers,
Bryan Wendell 8:58
so those same 300 people are going to have a better experience, shorter days, because there's, there's a better structure for them,
Brandon Rochelle 9:05
exactly. And in the example of 112 person field, we're splitting that, I think it's 16 as the number of pools for that, and that fits very well in our pod concept that you see at our national events, where we break our strips traditionally into groups of four, and so you're dealing with four pods of four, there, the math oddly seems to always work out into multiples of two or four, and everything fencing, you know, our direct elimination tables are split up that way, oftentimes our competitor counts like just naturally gravitate toward those types of numbers, so being able to make logistically better use of the facility by being able to split the events up, you get a lot more flexibility, and where you can put time of day, the space in the facility, where those four pods can go, versus if you're dealing with a much larger group, you may be from one end of the convention center to the other. A number of times I see coaches like sprinting, like wanting to get them some Segway scooters, maybe they go from Pod A to Double Z. Or whatever we have at summer nationals, it can be a bit of a challenge just logistically to get those people from one place to another, so having those smaller groups gets them closer together in general. I think it is going to make for a much better coaching experience. You'll be able to move a little bit more proactively between strips, versus oh my gosh, that strip is five pods away by the time I get there, they're going to be done. Yes, being able to watch even multiple people from the same club, club mates watching each other. I think this will be a little bit of a better experience too. But all of that being said, it still runs a little bit faster because we don't have to fly, because there are fewer people to logistically move around the building. We're projecting an hour, possibly even two hours shorter on some of the length of day, and a non-flighted scenario, even in a double-flighted scenario, like we were talking about earlier, it could potentially be 456, hours less on some of those events. So I think there's a huge potential time savings, better athletic experience there, much better staff experience, and being able to hold and maintain onto a referee cadre that's not just absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, four day tournament will be a great change as well.
Bryan Wendell 11:03
Yeah, everybody wins on a practical level. Has the tournament committee talked through what these events are actually called? Like, is it called elite division one women's foil, for example, and national division one women's foil, or is that still being finalized?
Brandon Rochelle 11:17
I think some of that's being finalized at some point. We had to develop a vocabulary to talk about it, various stakeholder groups within the committee itself, and so we chose some of those words at the very beginning of some of these discussions, just to have a vocabulary to be able to talk to each other. Sure, sure,
Brandon Rochelle 11:31
I'll leave it to some of the marketing people to determine if some of those are the best choices. We don't want there to be a lot of confusion, particularly at the national level on that split, so developing nomenclature for that, I think, will be very important. Local, regional, international, those all make natural sense. The national level, maybe some work to be done, maybe not. We developed it kind of as a temporary word, and now it's being used everywhere. So, is it, is it the right word? It may be. Yeah, I don't know.
Bryan Wendell 11:59
I think that's a good spirit to kind of remind people that there's this trial period that we're calling this, right, this is a two year trial, and so you and your fellow tournament committee members are welcoming feedback and want to hear from people about what works, and you will be assessing after each tournament, you know, how did this go, did our models pay out and show what we expected them to show, so can you share, like your philosophy going into, I guess, October NAC and beyond, for how you're going to look at the feedback, both that you're hearing from the community and also the feedback that you're going to get by running an actual tournament?
Brandon Rochelle 12:35
That's something that I've actually learned a lot about along the way here in the last three years, and helping people have the right pathways to give feedback to us was even an important first step of who do we even need to talk to to see what we want to do about our tournament framework, so getting a list of the stakeholders that even we wanted to have input, you know, that took a little bit of time, and
Brandon Rochelle 12:58
getting that feedback together, a lot of our committees are volunteer-oriented, you know, giving them the time to look at some of this stuff, so people are, why did it take this long, or, you know, what some of it is just about developing the pathways to even have these discussions, because it's just not something you embark upon very frequently. So, I think that is a very important part of moving forward too. I've learned so much by the different conversations that I've had with the different groups that have been involved with some of the early stages of this, and then coming to the point where we were getting ready to announce, and whatnot. The input of the board has was very critical in some of that too, and helping me understand what some of their priorities were, and the different types of groups that they felt were important that we, that we talked to too. So, being able to get in front of those people, hear their feedback, everything has been an evolutionary process in this. It's not something that we really set out and said this is the hard and fast way that we think this needs to be done. There are a lot of very smart people in fencing. I have really appreciated the work of the various people who we have been able to meet with and the input that they've given us, and I look forward to even more of that as we proceed forward at the trial. Yeah, and even though the tournament committee has its kind of name on this, like you said, it's been a group process that has involved coaches and referees, and obviously the board and athletes, which I think is really great to see this collaborative effort, but like you said, that having so many stakeholders is one of the reasons why it took a little bit of time to finalize this, because you wanted to get it as close to right as possible, and as Phil says, progress not perfection, right? It's never going to be a perfect system. And I think when we put out the article on the website announcing this,
Bryan Wendell 14:30
we, we said there's some things we don't even know yet, and there's some things that that are still being decided and finalized in the spirit of transparency. So, for example, one thing that I think people want some clarity on is planning for their tournament experience, right. So, if they're a women's saber fencer, Division One women's saber fencer, for example, and they want to plan their trip to Orlando for the October NAC, how do they know if they're going to be in the elite or the national level, and will those events be on the same day, or is there a chance that they. Thought they were going to be competing on Friday, but they actually made it into that elite bracket, and now they're competing on Saturday.
Brandon Rochelle 15:05
Our intention, kind of even stepping up a level with a lot of this, was to make as few changes as reasonably possible, while also providing for a framework that will last this organization hopefully another couple decades. So, a lot of that with the NAC planning in particular was trying to keep a similar experience for travel planning as we have right now, so in almost 100% of the cases I really feel like that the national and elite divisions will be fenced on the same day.
Bryan Wendell 15:31
Okay,
Brandon Rochelle 15:32
so from a travel planning perspective, very similar to what you have now, we'll pre-publish the day schedules that will say these events will be fenced on these days, and then once we get the final registrations back, then we publish check-in times, like exactly like we do now.
Bryan Wendell 15:44
Yep, the
Brandon Rochelle 15:44
difference will be once we publish those check-in times, that elite and that national event may not be at the same time, so one may be at 8o'clock one may be at 1o'clock
Bryan Wendell 15:54
which is how you're able to go back to our original point, that's how you're able to have a better, shorter day with these, these athletes, right,
Brandon Rochelle 16:00
exactly, and so once you again get put into the elite or the national division, which will happen when we publish the check-in times, then you'll be able to make the necessary arrangements. Now, there is a group of people in that national division who are kind of on standby, so let's say, for example, someone in the elite group decides that they don't want to fence anymore, and a spot becomes available. As you're registering for an event, you will have the option to be promoted into the elite event if a spot becomes available, and that will be at your option. So, in the example of if there are 300 people in the event, like we were talking about earlier, and we have that 112 and the rest in the other group, if one of those 112 decides not to compete, the number one person in the national event will be at the option of moving up into elite,
Bryan Wendell 16:41
if they've checked the box, if they've checked that box, I want to do that,
Brandon Rochelle 16:44
and that's after we make the splits. Yeah, if they, if they are eligible and they have chosen and elected that they want to be promoted, then they'll be moved up. Otherwise, they can stay at that national level, but that choice is only available after the event is split. So, if you are number 111 you don't get the option to fence in the national event, you are required to fence in the elite event. It's really for those people on that bubble from national into elite. If their travel plans are flexible or they want the opportunity to fence up a level into the elite, then we're going to give them that option as in a standby capacity, similar to a wait list that you might see at a regional event, or whatnot, that will be in the same order that you appear on the points list,
Bryan Wendell 17:22
I like that. Yeah, so that's how you move between fields, but also it's important to note that there's going to be one unified points list per age category, right? So for those who maybe don't spend a lot of time looking at the points as they are now, how is this different, and how does a fencer's point total actually get built?
Brandon Rochelle 17:43
Yeah, this is the fun part. Yeah, and I think a lot of people think we might have started at the pointsless side of this, and then said, okay, we're going to make all of this work, and actually started the other way, where we're saying our events are too large at the national level, we're running out of facilities to take them to, or kind of growing and growing and growing, and we're comfortable with the sizes of that, where we are, so that's where this change started. What can we do in order to stay? I want our NACs to be community events. I don't want them to be hyper selective, but at the same time, we can't just keep growing infinitely forever. Being able to still provide some of that community component that I think our national level tournaments have always served a very important part in the organization's structure, for even before I existed in fencing, that was super critical to me moving forward too. So, thinking about, like, how do we keep that same number of people get this event split that we're looking for. Then came, well, how do we do it? So it's like we want this 112 person field is giving a relatively good sized direct elimination table. Similarly, that makes a better experience for the national level competitors, where they're at a more developmentally appropriate level, where they're not going to just get blanked in a pool and travel all this way. They have a reasonable opportunity to compete as well. So, once we made some of those decisions, like, okay, well, How do we decide who's in that top 112 who's in the top 168 Who's in the top pick a number? How do we decide when some of our current national points lists don't go that deep? So it becomes, well, do we look at regional lists? Well, not all fencers compete at the local level, at the regional level, at the national level. So there's not really a whole lot of consistency between the way that we have our points list organized right now. We have no local results, other than ratings. For example, at the regional level, we don't. For rocks, we only point the top 40% At the national level, it's the top 32 top 64 depending on the field size. So, if you're in a 300 person event at a current knack and you don't make the top 64 we don't have points for you. It's like as if you didn't exist, so we don't have a lot of like data about what your skill level is. So, when we start looking at, well, once we get into like the 160 200 spot on some of even our larger points list, it gets because it gets very wishy-washy on how we even determine. So, yeah, we have to be have a better sense of how we structure the strength of the field. Build, and in order to do that, you have to look beyond the national level. So, then it was like, well, how do we overlay regional results with national results with international results? And not everyone has access easily to regional tournaments, so should we even consider local events as a way to get in at the bottom levels of some of these competitions? So, as we started to look at that, the natural inclination that becomes like one points list. Is there a way that we can say across the grand spectrum of fencing, from local all the way to international, is there a way for you to see how you compare almost to every athlete who is in your weapon, who's in your gender, who's in your age category,
Bryan Wendell 20:36
from Lee Kiefer to someone who just picked up foil for the first time.
Brandon Rochelle 20:40
Yes, and there's some other examples of this within sport and outside of sport too, of how of having like that global ranking almost from zero to 100 million. You know, how can you see? And I think it will be a great way to kind of track your progression as well. Right now, our only methodology of doing it is by maybe by ratings, you get your E for the first time, your D, and those are important milestone events, but saying, How am I really comparing to people in my region? How am I really comparing to people at the national level beyond just a single tournament result? I think this will be a really great barometer for progression tracking your way through the sport to be able to have it all within that one list to say not only my results from Knacks being counted beyond the top 32 or the 64 which I think is a great change to be able to see, you know, track your results over NAC to NAC, if you're not cracking that top 32 yet. Am I still progressing in the sport? I think all of this will give a lot better chance for that. So, you asked another question, like, how am I actually calculating
Bryan Wendell 21:40
it? Yeah, so the new, that's kind of how we got here. So, what does this new points unified points list actually look like? How is it constructed?
Brandon Rochelle 21:47
Yes, so I can't tell you how many discussions we've had about this particular one, and ultimately our guiding, like our north star in all of this was, how do we stay reasonably simple while also allowing what we need for the final result of all of this, which is ultimately like a very good list of seating, like we need to be able to know for the elite split. We want to be fairly confident that we have the top 112 fencers. So we started to look at that in various ways. Do we do it different for cadet versus junior versus senior? And ultimately, just from a simplicity perspective, and some data modeling we did, we just landed on top six results. So, currently we have a lot of different nomenclature around, like group one, group two points, all of this kind of stuff that I think can get a little bit confusing for entry-level people into the sport, in particular, and even when you're kind of progressing into the international level, it can get a little bit confusing as well. So,
Bryan Wendell 22:40
one
Brandon Rochelle 22:41
of our theses is that, like, as you begin to get better as a fencer, there can be some more complexity in the system, but at the same time we want accessibility at the lower ends when you're beginning to fencing, so understanding where you are on the points list doesn't become an impediment to you making a choice to continue being a fencer. Yeah, those are kind of the two different aspects of it. So we landed on your top six best results, and so your toxic results, when you first start fencing, may be all at local competitions. They may be at even like club level style competitions, where you may only have five, 610, fencers competing. Those are going to be pointed at much, much less than our national or elite or international events, but at least you're getting a little bit of progression and understanding at that point, and then as you fill those six buckets, if you fence a seventh tournament and you get a better result, it just fills the lowest result, drops off, your newest result comes in, and then those numbers, those six numbers are summed up, and that's your, your point total.
Bryan Wendell 23:35
You talked about data modeling, were you able to look at actual results from past seasons and say, okay, someone who was, you know, fifth on the points list, right now is still around fifth, or still fifth under this new model.
Brandon Rochelle 23:49
We've done a lot of that, in particular, at for international team selection, looking at the ways that we've set our levers on the points thresholds that are at various fans, so international, for example, the top tier, the number one placement is getting 4000 points at an elite event, that's 1000 points, and there are some very important reasons why those numbers were selected based upon that data modeling. So we looked at all of the weapons, all of the genders, junior cadet, division one, and started to look at, okay, based if we just pointed exactly the last year or two, I think we went back two years during this process. If we did that exactly the same way with this new system, will we end up reasonably in the same field? And what you're going to see is at the very, very top of those lists, there's very little change as you work yourself down the list. There is going to be a little bit of movement once you get outside of the top 12 or 20, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, you know. We want to make sure that you're putting together a portfolio of results rather than focusing on like single pops of high-level results, and so some of this you're being rewarded for consistency, I think, in the system, which is an important characteristic of it. I will say we could be totally wrong on all of this, and that's why we're going through this. Year period, where we are keeping the existing team selection list, so our international selection is not changing
Bryan Wendell 25:05
right
Brandon Rochelle 25:05
over the next two years, which I think is a very important caveat. Double highlighted every presentation that I've tried to do, I wanted to underscore that, that was also very important with the athlete council when we were discussing with them going into a hometown Olympics in LA. We didn't want to necessarily rock the apple cart too much there on the team selection process, but I do believe as we get to the end of this trial, you'll begin to see a lot of consistency between the the new, the new way and the current existing points list, and yeah, we've been calling them just for vocabulary terms like the legacy points list and the trial points list, and and actually the plan is to publish them side by side, right. So, this legacy list that's going to be used for things like the selection for world championships and even the LA Olympics will still be the one that's used and will still be visible, but, like you said, we'll be able to show our work and say that, hey, this trial list actually would have resulted in the same for Olympians, for example, right. So, that'll
Bryan Wendell 26:00
be some important data when and if it arrives, so this ladder, there's a five tier ladder, right, international, elite, national, regional, and local. Something that might surprise some people is that a win at a lower tier might be actually worth more points than a lower finish at a higher tier, right. So there's some overlap there. Why is that?
Brandon Rochelle 26:21
The very simple answer, this is, we don't want people to get stuck. So, if you are in, let's take the elite and national, it's the easiest explainer, I think. If you are not in the elite category, how do you get in?
Bryan Wendell 26:32
Yeah,
Brandon Rochelle 26:32
and this is really a lot of the discussions that we had with a lot of our different stakeholder groups as we were going through this. There were some initial ideas about how we structure elite, in particular, that kind of locks people in, so like once you were into that elite group, it was almost impossible,
Bryan Wendell 26:46
even if you finish 112 every single time, right? You're just, you're staying in the
Brandon Rochelle 26:49
elite group, you're staying in the elite group, and then you never have any new people working their way in. So there has to be a little bit of movement between each of these tiers, so in the explainer of elite to national, the points are structured in such a way that the bottom 25% of elite and the top 25% of national should always be churning with each other, so if you're in that that bottom quartile and then the top quartiles, we want those kind of mixing knack to knack to give that person who's showing strong performance in the national tier their next shot,
Bryan Wendell 27:21
yeah.
Brandon Rochelle 27:21
And similarly, and the bottom tiers of elite, maybe working your way down into national gives you a better training opportunity to get your feedback under you, or totally in order to work your way back up into elite. The whole idea behind that, the top ends of this is we're starting to identify people for international travel selection, and then teams, and Olympic medals and Olympic gold medals, which is ultimately what we're shooting for here. So that's really with the structure, as you work yourself down between the tiers, it's a very similar methodology from elite to national to the bottom portions of national and regional and regional and local. All of those points thresholds have been set so that you begin to understand, okay, I'm ready, I'm placing in the top 25% of national consistently, the points are rewarding me for that, and now I have the opportunity to complete an elite, and that same kind of methodology works at all those different levels.
Bryan Wendell 28:11
So it's kind of like a promotion and relegation system that we might see in soccer, although we won't log into your profile and see that you're elite, it's more like when you register for a tournament, you'll see that, hey, you're in this top number of people who have registered, and that is what makes you elite for this tournament. Am I understanding that? Yeah,
Brandon Rochelle 28:28
that's basically, yeah, that's correct. Yeah, and I think over time we're going to develop ways in order to be able to telegraph that a little bit sooner, so you don't have to wait for that event split. For example, we can begin to say mathematically you're a lock for elite, no
Bryan Wendell 28:42
matter how many people register, right? Yeah, just
Brandon Rochelle 28:44
it's statistically where you are on the points list, you're a lock for elite, and then similarly with national, and so on and so forth.
Bryan Wendell 28:51
Makes sense.
Brandon Rochelle 28:51
So I think over time in this initial trial period, we're developing these more beta points lists before we even begin using them in August, we're going to get some early data back on that, and then as we proceed into that first year of the tournament, I think we'll start to see those numbers very quickly, and be able to, and be able to publish that a lot sooner in some of those lists. You know, my goal, people ask me all of the time, why can't you publish the check-in schedule with times when you put out the day schedule?
Bryan Wendell 29:16
Yeah,
Brandon Rochelle 29:17
and my goal is with this new system is to be able to
Bryan Wendell 29:20
do that. Okay,
Brandon Rochelle 29:20
and we just need some of that, we need some data in order to be able to do that, and even right now it's very.. I think we're going to get a lot more consistency in the sizes of our events in this new system. So, with that consistency, we can plan a lot more ahead of time, versus right now, we don't know if we're going to have 35 pools of epee or 55 pools of eBay, and one of those means we have to flight it, one of those means we don't, and it can depend on where we are in the country, it can depend on what time of year it is, there's a lot of variables here, beyond it's not like every single tournament you have exactly 250 people in our current system, so being able to get a lot more consistency about that brings consistency to the whole experience, not just. From that, the actual tournament,
Bryan Wendell 30:01
I think, if this trial results in us being able to publish check-in times and the day schedule on the same day, then everyone will say it's a success, regardless of everything else. But no, I know there's a lot of factors beyond that. Okay, how about the trickle down between the different Division One junior and cadet points? So, can we talk about how junior and cadet points relate to Division One, and can a result in one age group actually count toward another trickling down the ladder, so to speak.
Brandon Rochelle 30:31
Yeah, so a cadet fencer that fences in Division One, this happens a lot, their points will trickle down. There is a kind of a step system to this, so let's say, for example, in Division One you won the elite level event in our senior level, you get 1000 points. How does that transfer then to the junior list? It's 1000 points, so it transfers at 100% one level down. So a division one fencer is also a junior fencer, they win the event, they're going to get 1000 points on both of those lists. That same result, if they're also a cadet fencer, that division one win goes to 1000 points at the junior level, but it will be about 800 points on the cadet list, and the reason for this is that we don't want to over reward competitions that far above your current age bracket, so if you begin winning a lot of the division one events, it's almost mathematically impossible for anyone to compete with you, because the points are so much more overvalued in Division One than they are Cadet. So, a win for Cadet is about 600 points, a win, and Senior is 1000 points. Yeah, so even if you're not winning in Division One, if you're getting in the top eight or the top 16, you're getting a lot of points that the winners of the Cadet event are not even getting. So, we have to be really careful about how those points mix with each other, and this was a lot of the discussion with the national coaches, is really where this one came into play, about how they view the strength of the field of our cadet fencers now versus whenever some of our original points lists were developed 20 years ago,
Bryan Wendell 31:55
interesting,
Brandon Rochelle 31:56
and before competing at a higher level and earning results in division one meant a great deal, because the cadet fields were a little bit not as consistently strong, but we're seeing really great results at the international level, and cadet keeping them fencing at developmentally appropriate levels. We don't want 12 and 13 year olds who can be eligible for cadet feeling like they have to push themselves past even junior into the senior levels too early in their careers, and so making sure there's a very careful balance of yes, we want you, if you're ready, to start moving up to junior or into the senior list, but at the same time not making it feel like you have to in order to get the necessary points, so that's that's kind of the balance of this trickle down attempts to achieve, yeah, and for people who are worried that they're going to have to get their calculators out to figure this out. How will the fencing family out there actually know how many points they have? Right now, they're going for national points, they're going to our website and looking at a PDF that someone meticulously creates at the end of each competition, international or domestic. How is this going to work during this trial period and beyond, so a really critical part that we also wanted to focus on was making sure that our points lists were automatable, whatever we decided, so as those tournament results are being ingested, we can publish those points lists very quickly, accessible, searchable online, and a lot easier than just like downloading a pdf and kind of scrolling and trying to find your name, so it'll kind of be our current regional event system on steroids, we're bringing in a lot more data visualization on how you're getting your results, being able to search them, being able to look at the strength of the fields of the various tournaments, and also the new point system is a little bit more regular in how it issues points, so for example, in our current RJCs, it's a degrading formula based upon the number of competitors and how many, and where you finished, and lots of dividing and multiplying that you can, you can do, but it's a little, it's a little bit confusing, especially to newer fencers. Now, you'll be able to just look at the points charts as soon as that result comes in, it's being populated in, and then everything will be recalculated pretty much instantly as soon as those results are received by the National Office from each tournament,
Bryan Wendell 34:03
fencers competing right now, they're proud of their points and their rankings that they have on August one. Are those points going to go away, or how will this transition onto the new list?
Brandon Rochelle 34:13
Yes, so we don't want people starting over. If this isn't, I think a lot of the great concern when we were initially workshopping this with people is like, am I going to have to go like I'm number two in the country. Am I going to have to go back and fence at a local level, and everybody reset? No, yeah, rebuild my points, and the answer is very much no. And there will be some mapping going on between the existing points list and the new points list. We're actually going to go, probably go back to the results of those lists, the results that created those lists, and then basically point them as if they had happened in the past year, kind of rewind the clock, repoint it, and give people an initial points seating from their existing results,
Bryan Wendell 34:48
so you'll still get credit for that fifth place at the April NAC, but just using the points list as it is under the new formula.
Brandon Rochelle 34:55
Yeah, so there's basically like Rosetta Stone, if you will, between the old list. James list, and being able to transfer those between them. There is also another factor in this, is that we have fencers who may not compete very frequently at the regional level or at the local level, but they are competing, and we don't want to treat them like a new fencer either.
Bryan Wendell 35:13
Okay,
Brandon Rochelle 35:14
if they don't have a national level result, for example, if they don't have a high level regional result that might already like prequalify them for our NAC structure, so some of it may be based on rating structure as well. So, we're looking at kind of, as you know, as I've kind of made the corollary to when airlines launch new loyalty programs, they'll often do some sort of transition year, and I think that we're looking at something similar to that, where if you have an A rating that you don't have other results that we can find or whatnot, does can that translate to a certain number of minimum points that will then prequalify you for the regional level or the national level, depending on the overall strength of those fields. So, I think there will be beyond just going backwards and looking at your previous results, there will also be a ratings influence of this in a transition year somehow,
Bryan Wendell 36:02
and so this is a trial we've said that a few times. How are you going to measure success? How will you know six months in a year in whether this is working or whether some tweaks need to be made? We
Brandon Rochelle 36:11
have a couple of data barometers for this. Some were set up by the strategic plan that the organization created for the 2428 Olympic quad. A big factor of that was participation in the local level, there wanted to see some fairly significant increases, a 30% increase, is what's in the strategic plan. So this whole conversation began as that strategic plan was being created in 2023 So some of this is the natural result of some of that. So, in order to get greater local event participation, how do we do that? And it's like putting more emphasis at the local level, so being able to give local at least a little bit of points, so they understand their progression within the sport, making those important in a laddering effect from local to regional to national, all of these kind of came into play, so that's a very important element, 30% growth in local competition, there are other barometers in the strategic plan about the placements that we have internationally about having a certain number of people on various teams and their placements at the international level are some data elements there, but that's really been what we've been focused on since the beginning of this year, is developing those metrics that we're going to be comparing ourselves against as this trial moves forward, just to make sure that we are progressing the way that we want. I will say that a huge, huge part of that is re-emphasizing and improving our local level tournament experience, and even some of our smaller regional events, and giving them better opportunities for success. So, how do we do that? We have to put some emphasis on it,
Bryan Wendell 37:32
and I've also heard you and others say ranking stability will be one barometer that you look at, making sure that, like we discussed before, the legacy and the trial list are pretty similar, so that someone isn't ranked third on one and 15th on another. That might be an indicator that something's a little wonky here.
Brandon Rochelle 37:49
Yeah, so I mean, there is going to be, like we mentioned a little bit earlier, there may be a little bit of movement beyond that very, very top, but we don't want a ton of movement. Yeah, someone moving from 15th event to 50th, that would be a reasonable result out of this too. So, there are some barometers for success in that as well.
Bryan Wendell 38:07
Cool. So, as we kind of wrap up, what do you want someone to take away? The one thing you want a fencer, or a parent, or a coach to take away from this conversation that we've had, and this larger rollout of the events restructure.
Brandon Rochelle 38:20
I know it may sound like a lot. There isn't as much change here, I think, as would initially appear. We really, really did a lot of work in trying to maintain the best parts of the systems that we currently have, while also setting up a structure that can grow with the organization from where we are now to 100,000 members or 200,000 members, and not have to go through a process like this again by having that framework already in place. So, some of it is going to be, I know that change is scary, and the fencing community, our tournament structure is a very, very important part of who we are from a community perspective, and making sure that people still have the appropriate opportunities available to them is a big part of this too, so I wouldn't be too scared by it. I think some of it is proof is in the pudding in some of this stuff, and we're gonna have to start to show our work, so that is definitely coming. But to give it a shot, I think this is a great way to be able to look at, think of the experience of a very, very beginning fence fencer, and think of the ones who have been in the sport for decades and trying to come to a place where the people who are ready for it are getting the opportunities that need to be available to them to push them in the sport, giving them a better idea of when that may even be, like there may be a fencer out there who doesn't think they're ready for the regional level yet, or doesn't think they're ready for the NAC level yet, because we don't have local level points, or we don't have, you know, deep level pointing at the regional level, so how do we begin to show them, like, we think you're ready, come and join us, you know, come to the carnivals that are knacks and see where you can go with the sport. So I think that's that's the huge, huge part of this is making the sport accessible across a very wide spectrum of competitors that we have a.
Bryan Wendell 40:00
Groups and everything, I'm super, super excited about it. Yeah, I love that. That's you got me inspired and pumped up. So, Brandon, thanks so much for joining us, and thanks to you and all of the - and I'm underlining this here - volunteers who have put so many hours and so much thought and really care into this launch and rollout, and there's a lot more to come, right? So, for listeners who want an even deeper dive, and to see some of these point tables that we've been talking about. If you're a visual learner, then that's on our website, usafencing.org and people can find it there. And we'll be posting more materials about this just as soon as we can. So, Brandon, thanks so much.
Brandon Rochelle 40:35
Thanks for having me.
Bryan Wendell 40:37
Thanks for listening to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. We'll be back with our next conversation in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can stay up to date on all the latest fencing news by following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And if you like this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating or review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the strip. Bye.