More Video Evidence of Vasil Milenchev Breaking The Rules

[@jamesbarbour327]

I have tremendous respect for your efforts with this and other faults in the system! You are doing really important work here!

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@jamesbarbour327 I'm trying hard man. I need help though. Anyone who is reading this who has any information that can help us win this battle should reach out to me on Instagram!

[@jamesbarbour327]

@@CyrusofChaos I have all my students watch your videos, and discuss them in our classes. They are an INVALUABLE resource, and one that didn’t exist 11-12 years ago. I wish they had!😁

[@ChaffinchNZ]

Thanks for posting this! That ref doing this right in front of the official video feed, that really is incredible. How fortunate that we have quality video that is always on.

[@luiscorreavila4278]

what you are doing is crazy important for this sport! thank you for being the voice of many sabre fencers!

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@luiscorreavila4278 I'm happy to start the movement but more people and federations need to speak up for anything to really change

[@stevep1762]

OK multiple points to address here: 1: Coaching while employed as a referee is not allowed explicitly by the rules. Milenchev should AT LEAST forfeit his referee fee for this tournament and at worst be suspended. Zero chance this happens. 2: Coaching by anyone in the eyeline of the referee is not allowed either. Coaches should be at the ends of the pistes and the referee to have their back to the crowd for good reason. This should also be enforced better and also zero chance this happens. 3: There is no chance that any fencer qualified for the Olympics can risk speaking out now. How can they be the one who starts this off, considering what they might expect from their own NGB and their own Olympic federation, when they have worked all their fencing careers to get to the games? But coaches can, and other fencers can and parents and spectators who understand these issues can speak up. 4: Why you? Because of your profile in the sport of sabre. If you start a petition, you will get a lot of signatures and we can make the point loudly.

[@zorianhd8321]

disgraceful behaviour.. fencing has fallen very far.

[@samuell1894]

Correction: Saber fencing.

[@romanista77]

I've been involved in fencing for a long time. But, at a much lower level. I've witnessed incredibly corrupt behaviour and coverups. I've spoken out and been told if I don't their will be legal action. I've been also kicked out of clubs for speaking out. We are in a very corrupt sport. The sad reality is that most people are afraid to speak out. Best case scenario is that fencing gets dropped from the Olympics. Less money and prestige, and maybe (just maybe) we can take a long hard look at ourselves. Thank you for your efforts!

[@iainmcclure416]

Keep up the good work. But you're right - more people need to speak up!

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@iainmcclure416 thank you! Hopefully they will after the Olympics is over. But we will see 😅

[@jae123123123]

Great video documenting questionable behavior. It is too bad that we didn't have matching audio which would have been quite entertaining and educational. But I'm torn on why we accept some of the FIE rules to be not followed (e.g. right of way) but expect other rules to be explicitly followed (e.g. referee/coaching rules).

[@mwilson2994]

As a high level US sabre fencer affected by the clear and documented FIE rule breaches, why don’t you send a short letter enclosing the video evidence to your own federation, for them to pursue with the FIE?

[@mwilson2994]

Update to my earlier comment: having just watched the Pablo Torre video, I see that the US federation has been in contact with the FIE, though the correspondence shown partially in the Torre video seems not to address the specific and documented rule breaches by the referees in question. The US federation should be asked to file complaints against the referees in question, requesting the FIE to investigate and impose appropriate sanctions.

[@seoeunkang]

Wow. Unbelievable. I guess there are no rules against this kind of curruptions

[@TheRealMatyiLudas]

there is another problem . the referee of this bout should of seen that and make a stop to it.

[@roshallock5747]

The guy is one of the most influential referees in the weapon, in the world. You're asking someone to make a practically impossible choice. Do they call this guy out, get blackballed and blacklisted from ever refereeing at that level, if not ever, again? Or do they say nothing and continue to pay their bills, support themselves, and advance their career? It's easy to advocate someone else potentially torch their life's work and career when they themselves have nothing to lose from that sacrifice. That's what makes corruption like this so terribly insidious. There are no good choices for the people who have the power to stand up and say something.

[@giorgiamancini8595]

I think this is the same referee that was accused of being corrupt by Slicer Sabre,I honestly think he shouldn't be referring by now

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@giorgiamancini8595 yes, sadly this video surfaced in response to that video

[@kapsssel]

omg this is wild

[@crimsonmun3293]

Well... Milenchev is an actually good coach, it seems

[@mishatsarevsky9656]

Look this is not unique in fencing, unfortunately. It is very common for Referees to be coaches and for referees to coach and ref during the same tournament and even same event. The problem is not just ONE MAN. The problem is the whole system and the lack of accountability. In almost every sport there is a clear line between referee's and coaches. Fencing however blurred the line. In many major tournaments even in the US it is not uncommon for coaches to ref their fencers bout or even teammates to ref their teammates bout. Which is way many fencers switch to Epee. Vasil Milenchev is not the problem. The system is the problem. Vasil Milenchev has years of referee experience behind him. To say that he is the only problem or that is stems around him is not true or fair. Look at the bout with Bazadze and the Spanish female official in the Paris olympics, for example.(Happened a few days ago) The problem in Saber is that a beautiful game has been turned into a circus of clashes in the middle where a pinky toes flinch decides the match. Where as Saber was the most athletic weapon and required fencers to move up and down the strip regularly and also required fencers to beable to use skills. Today 97% of touches happen in a clash in the middle where the referee decides which fencers shoes he likes better and give the touch to that fencer. Andrew, I respect your channel and your effort to help the sport of saber to get better but to attack one man in a video without explaining the whole issues of the fencing world can be hurtful and unnecessary. just my 2 cents

[@laertides7]

This is a take that I know very few people will agree with, in addition to being as near enough to impossible to enact as a solution as makes no difference, so I don't even know why I'm commenting, but here goes: Modernization, of both the tangible and intangible elements of this sport, is largely to blame for this problem. On the tangible end, the continual improvement in performance (in this case, I'm mostly referring to speed) of both the equipment and the fencers is, in large part, what allows refereeing to be so ambiguous. No one wants to admit it, but a huge amount of actions in the box are functionally simultaneous and the only reason they aren't called that way is that we don't want to call them what they are. An enormous amount of the ambiguity in refereeing and therefore the distrust of officials could be solved if we could all simply agree that infinitesimal differences in hand and foot placement should not give one attack precedence over another if both fencers simply charge forward at the start of the action. Stop allowing referees to award touches in those actions and you stop so much of this problem in its tracks. Make the fencers fence. The intangible side is even more to blame, but even harder to solve. Take the bout in this video as a great example. Milenchev knows full well that he shouldn't be coaching. The Bulgarian fencers know full well that they shouldn't be looking for him to coach them, or accepting his advice. But none of them care, because winning is more important than competing with honor. With integrity. I don't mean to say that I think cheating in sport is a modern or contemporary problem. I'm not that much of a Luddite, or however you may wish to describe it. I do think, however, that fencing, in particular, suffers greatly from the continual watering down of honor as a concept. We all talk about the sport's rich history so often, but what exactly we mean isn't explored nearly as frequently. How quickly we forget that our predecessors studied fencing as a matter of life and death, not as a game or a way to get money from Russian oligarchs. I'm starting to ramble, but my point is, the true and correct way to fix this problem is for the fencers *not to want* to be awarded fake touches. For the fencers and their representatives *not to want* to buy their way into the Olympics or world championships, etc. In practice at your club, it's easy not to accept a touch that you don't think you earned. Somewhere along the line, many high level fencers lose that sensibility. They need to grow it back.

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@laertides7 any suggestions for how to make them grow it back?

[@laertides7]

@@CyrusofChaos I wish I did, but how do you *make* someone want to play fair? How do you force someone not to have a price, so to speak? I believe you've made the point in at least one other video that since you can't do the above, you need to make the rules impossible (or at least less easy) to manipulate. And while on some level I agree with that, there's another part of me that rebels against that idea strongly. Fencing, in my opinion, requires context. Two actions that might be the same on paper might be very different in real time. Right of way, and indeed the interpretation of right of way, are, to my mind, at least, an integral part of the game. I guess my best attempt would be to make the punishment for cheating so oppressive that everyone's price would be too high. But we could poke holes in that before it ever even left this comment section. The cheating would just be more clandestine. The price probably can't be made too high for one of the 100 richest men in the world. I dunno. Make it so the refs don't know who the fencers are? That would work, if it could be done. But in such a small community, it can't be. Even a layperson could eventually start to recognize fencers by their style.

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@laertides7 and since we've basically already gotten to the point where "change human nature is impossible" I'm going to try to see if I can get my idea implemented and see how it works 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@laertides7]

@@CyrusofChaos I did say right at the top that what I'd consider the solution is basically impossible. It's just what I'd prefer to see. I definitely agree with you that going back to the shorter timing would help. That has been my favorite iteration of sabre fencing that I've experienced. People's fear that it would be "too much like epee" were totally unfounded. I did have one other thought after I made my previous comment: instead of making the fencers anonymous, making the refs anonymous. If the refs at these events were pulled randomly from the cadre immediately before the start of the bout and their identities were never revealed, that should also help. There are a bunch of logistical issues there, but none I can think of that make it totally impossible. Video review should also be done remotely and by a small group.

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@laertides7 keeping the referee anonymous would provide them even more power/protection. you could get screwed over and nobody would ever know for sure who it was

[@brozomicki-sothe307]

And people wonder why fencing isn’t more popular… I’m just saying, fencing could be a lot more popular than it is as I know a lot of people who find it interesting but haven’t ever tried fencing. Of course there may be no correlation but I think if the federation was as good as the sport it could definitely be more popular

[@Roca891]

It’s pretty popular in the US compared to other niche sports. More popular to participate in than to watch. Watching is always going to be hard for casual audiences. Personally, some of the rules changes made to make it better for spectators have made it worse for participants. So I don’t really care if it ever gets more popular for spectators.

[@PianoKwanMan]

I don't enjoy watching it., but then again, I don't like watching any sport.

[@roshallock5747]

Let's be real: The FIE isn't going to do anything about this. He's one of the movers, the "in crowd". It's great you're calling attention to this, but until there's a shake up in leadership and money isn't involved anymore (LOL), you're shouting into the wind I fear.

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@roshallock5747 there's always way more going on in the background than I am highlighting in my videos. I know what the problem is, be patient :)

[@Kkyylllee]

English or Spanish

[@celestialtoystore]

Bent as an IOU signed by Bernie Madoff

[@CyrusofChaos]

@@celestialtoystore 🤣

[@decidingpaper6324]

Well said 😂