Press Releases FENCING WORLD CHAMPS GREAT SUCCESS FIE Press Release The Fencing World Championships held in Leipzig, Germany from October 8th until October 15th were a great success in all areas. FIE President René Roch after the closing ceremony: “Thanks to the German Organising Committee the presentation of our sport was very close to the level we knew from the Athens Olympics last year”. That was thanks to the lighting system installed and the new coloured fencing strips used in Germany. 737 athletes and 157 teams from 78 countries were participating in the 2005 Fencing World Championships. That was a new record. Another new record is the fact, that the 42 Medals were distributed within 15 countries. The Top Team was France with 10 medals in total. Some newcomer, like Canada or Estonia won their first medals ever. South Korea and United States won their first Team Gold Medals ever. “This proves that Fencing is a universal sport already” René Roch said. For the first time ever, people from all over the world could follow result data from each individual bout through the internet. Each scoring machine was connected LIVE to the web and users could see the score and the lamps of each bout either from pre-round competition or gold medal matches. The organisers were streaming live data from all 24 strips in the venue. More then 8,5 Million hits were registered during the week on the website of the Local Organising Committee. (Approx.: 250.000 Visits) The International Fencing Federation introduced another new product on the web during this World Championships: The FIE put every day a short video summary of the preliminary session on the web to promote the finals on television and on the web. Not less then 78.000 hits from exactly 87 countries were registered. For the first time there was a Live signal going to the United States. Spectators could follow the Medal Matches of the 2005 World Championships LIVE, as US based channel World Championships Sports Network (WSCN) was web-casting all week trough the internet. Their commentators were on site in Leipzig. To protect the TV rights of the EBU members an IP blocking system had been put in place for the European territory. WSCN registered 594 viewing hours in the US. The FIE tested for the first time “video-proof “ for the referees. It seems that referees did not use the system to give their decision, but it was apparently enough to have the system in place at the finals. “We had almost no mistake during the finals”, according to FIE president Roch, “but we had some mistakes from the round of the table of 32 until the Quarterfinals. The technology was installed only at the final strip and not available on the other four Direct Elimination strips. “To limit the number of mistakes, it seemed to be enough, just to have put the system in place.” René Roch said. “There is still room for improvement,” Roch adds. The system will in future World Championships be used on more fencing pistes. An automatic replay system, connected to the scoring machine, was presented under the eyes of IOC Sports Director Kelly Fairweather in Leipzig. The International Federation is now thinking of giving athletes the right to complain and ask the referee to review a decision limited to maximal three complaints per match. Another negative result is positive: “Not one doping case after one week of World Championships”, according to the latest information from the Local WADA accredited lab in Kreischa, Germany. 42 athletes had been tested. Next step for the Fencing World will be the FIE-congress, from 11th-13th of November in Doha. The FIE will then discuss the details of the Olympic Programme for 2008. The (maximum) 12 members for the Athletes commission will be confirmed as well at the Executive Committee in Qatar. 50 percent of the Athletes commission members were already voted for during the competition in Leipzig. The other half of the commission will be nominated at the Executive Committee.