Age group date line for youth competitions

It is the fencers responsibility to check age eligibility. Fencers who are not eligible may be excluded at any time, before, during or after the event. Please read all the rules and if in doubt then consult the organisers before entering.

Explanation of Age Dateline for Youth Events

Various datelines have been applied to various events in the past. Many are now converging on one rule:

The age group corresponds to the competitors age at New Year in the season of the event.

The season runs from 1st September to 31st August.

For example, for an event in November 2002, what matters is the competitors age at the start of 1st January 2003.

Note that this is not neccessarily the same as the fencers age on 1st Jan of the calendar year of the event (nor the fencers age on the day of the event). The age groupings are not the same as typical school year groups.

This rule has been mandated for the British Youth Championships and by the BFA (ref letter from John Ramsay and also ref England Website rule) for the exclusion of U13 fencers from events including fencers over the age of 18. It makes sense to minimise the number of different age datelines so SCFU has not invented its own.

The age groups are still blocks of two years*...it's just that who of what real age goes into which event is skewed by the interval between the dateline and their birthday. *(except the youngest BYC age group, for which see the BYC rules).

One reason for not using the day of the event as the dateline is that some events are qualifiers for National Finals. The qualifiers are held on different dates around the regions so cannot be used as datelines.

see also Fixture List Page 4 and note about blade sizes.

Please remember that events other than those organised by Surrey County Fencing Union may have different datelines / rules. Please check for each event you enter.

Explanation of Age Dateline for Youth Fencers in Adult Events

In events which may have fencers over the age of 18, the following rule applies for events run by Surrey County Fencing Union:

All fencers must be age 13 or over before 1st January in the season of the competition. The season runs from 1st September to 31st August.

The England Fencing website (at 5th March 2006) says:

"You must be 13 or over to enter any event in which adults are allowed to compete.

For all age restrictions, the relevant date is 1st January in the season of the competition. The season runs from 1st September to 31st August."

The reason for Surrey's interpretation of this is:

If you were born on 1st January at the date line for an event, please note that the intention is to be able to discriminate by year of birth alone, so 1st January is in the new year, not the previous year.