Recent research carried out in Scotland found that “fencers are disappointed by the shallow and not well-organised support policies for student-athletes.” There is an inclusive fencing community in Scotland and a desire for higher levels of performance, but access to resources appears to be the biggest barrier to fencers progression on an athletic career path. This is not just a student-athlete problem, it affects any fencer from any club aspiring towards high performance.
So why are there no high performance pathway structures nor mention of performance in the latest iteration of SF’s sport strategy? In the absence of any significant change in funding for high performance, it will, for the foreseeable future remain beyond the national governing body to take up this issue on its own.
But is the lack of funding the end of the conversation? What are the alternatives? What if there was a another better way available to us?
Currently, British Fencing require fencers to meet a certain performance standard before they are selected for the World and European teams. This is expressed as an average percentage finish at international nominated events of 35-40% or an individual result of 8%. That means regularly making last 32 stages or better of nominated international events. If we accept this as an indicator of performance, then the question is how to deliver the QTT relevant to these performance goals. Looking at the duration and frequency of training in high performing countries, this equates roughly to the following volumes of training, even before we start looking at quality:
Cadets 12-15 hour per week
Juniors 15-20 hours per week
Seniors +20 hours per week
And the more training an athlete undertakes, the more support they need wrapped around them to balance their development and wellbeing needs as a person, as an athlete and as a fencer.
What about participation fencers, those who will never aspire to high performance and those who might be late developers? When it comes to talent development systems, there are only three variables that are consistently highlighted as necessary and these are 1. to keep as MANY people in the sport 2. for as LONG as possible, 3. doing QUALITY work. Fencers doing 2 hours a week or 22 hours a week are all part of this talent system. It creates a powerful pyramid, one where everyone is contributing to everyone else’s participation, development or bid for high performance.
Currently, most clubs provide between 2-6 hours a week training opportunity for their members. Even where there is collaboration between clubs, the best we see is around 8-10 hours per week. This falls well short of the necessary QTT to give our fencers a fighting chance at performance events.
There are certainly many disadvantages to being a small under-resourced sport, but there are also many advantages. For example, the road to the Scotland Fencing Team is a short one, by which we mean that anyone can be motivated to aspire to and achieve a place on the Scotland Team as a first step towards high performance. We have a small, agile population, with close-knit networks and a positive culture of belonging and togetherness from which there are opportunities to help each other, to share information and to develop stronger ties in ways that aren’t possible in bigger countries and sporting systems.
Can we capitalise on this advantage? If there is a will, we believe there will be a way.
Using the SPLISS model as our benchmark, the main barriers to high performance is a lack of or absence of the following:
1. Financial resources
2. Governance, Management, Culture
3. High Performance Plan and Pathway
4. Talent identification and development structures
5. Athlete welfare support
6. Training Faciliites
7. Coach Development
8. Competition strucutre
9. Sport science, medicine and research
We are writing this letter to the fencing community to acknowledge the problems and the challenges and to make the first move towards establishing a high performance environment in Scotland. This will mean taking very small steps to build a performance culture, facilities, resources and knowledge over the next few years. And we need your help to do this.
We are aiming to build the programme from scratch over the next three years with a view to developing a performance programme that will provide the necessary QTT and access to resources to support the physical and psychological aspects of a fencer’s performance and in wellbein. As we take these first small steps, we’d like to hear from anyone who would like to be part of this initiative, who has experience of working in high performance environments and in particular to anyone who can contribute directly to any of the nine areas highlighted above.
We know that high perfomrance can’t be done by any one coach, club, or national governing body, but we believe that together, we can.
Please do get in touch.
Phil Carson (prof.carson@yahoo.co.uk)
Keith Cook
