One of the most frustrating moments for parents of USA Fencing is when their absolutely perfect video wouldn’t be accepted by a referee as proof of a devastatingly wrong call the referee made. So often such crucial mistakes are made at every level of competition, from small local to national championships at the most critical moment in the bout, mistakes that decide the outcome of the bout and none of these referees is agreeing to review the video that shows bright and clear their mistakes.

How many times have we been shocked that the tournaments do not provide video reviews in the table of 256 in any competition, and even at the NACs the video review starts at the table of 16? And what about other 300+ fencers that were eliminated before this round – aren’t they entitled to the same fair treatment?

Of course we all understand that this would double or maybe triple the cost of competition, as it would require at least twice as many referees in each event, if not even more, and have additional implications on space and technological investment, but when our fifth-grade fencer is losing their decisive Harvard-bound bout due to such unacknowledged referee mistake, aren’t we willing to forget, at least in this moment, these mundane operational issues?

The fencing forums, online discussions, and social media posts are full of such examples. If you, a fencing parent, read this post, I’m sure you have a bunch of videos in your own enormous library of your child’s fencing, that you too can pull out and add to this discussion.

But fear no more – finally the Referee Commission, USA Fencing and the company behind the Fencing Time tournament management platform listened to the parents’ voices and in the last year, following a great development in the second flight registration option, set to address these rightful concerns.

As part of this effort, I’m proud to announce an ultimate solution to the problems of bad calls not properly addressed in real time by providing a perfect, low-cost, crowd-funded solution to this problem.

The solution is so elegant and so relatively inexpensive, that the first thing that comes to mind is how this simple solution didn’t occur to us earlier? But sometimes the obvious solution lies on the surface…

So here it is:

On every scoring machine table there will be installed a small tablet, connected to the local network that the Fencing Time runs on.

Every time a bout is called for two fencers (Fencer on the Right and Fencer on the Left), their USA Fencing Profile has a “Video” button on the profile page. At the start of the bout, this video button is enabled and parents can start recording the video, which is streamed to the Fencing Time platform. If at any moment a bad call is made and one of the fencers calls for the video review, the referee can then go to this tablet and review the video from the same point of view of the parent who is sure the referee made a terrible call (well, the pun was not intended but it came out nicely and naturally here). Moreover, if needed, the referee can also review the opponent’s parent video for additional information and reference point. But there is even more to this technology! Both parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and teammates, can login to the fencer profile (of course if they are given the permission and credentials) and record the video from multiple angles to give the referee a true 360-degree view of their mistakes and finally being able to make the right call.

The current implementation does not save the video after the bout concludes due to the online cloud storage constrains and associated costs considerations, but if and when the need arises, this feature could be easily added in future.

The benefits of this solution are tremendous. First of all, there is no additional cost on official personnel, since the video operation is completely free and crowd-sourced by parents. The one-time investment into tablets is negligible, since they can be reused again and again in every consecutive tournament. The software development and addition of this capability to both Fencing Time and USA Platform was heavy lifting, but thankfully it was successfully completed on time to be field-tested at the upcoming April NAC and Division 1 Championships in Los Angeles. It is also very symbolic that the Silicon Valley type of solution is going to be first tested in California.

The final approval will be made today, on April 1st, in the USA Fencing National Office meeting with solution developers and referees who err the most, but preliminary testing showed the technology is solid and ready for deployment. Following this approval, the National Office will conduct 3 intensive field testings – at April NAC, May SJCC and Summer Nationals. The final goal is to gradually roll this video review solution out to the regional events until all USA Fencing Sanctioned tournaments enable it.

So say goodbye to your parental frustration! No more bad referee calls would be ignored by the referees, bringing the joy of the sport back to masses!