2023-24 GBR INTERNATIONAL REFEREEING ROUND-UP

This article forms part of a series of additional reports accompanying the 2023-24 BF Annual Report. 

Note: This report covers referee activity up to July 2024. While this falls outside the financial year, from a fencing perspective, this is considered the period of Major Championships across all the age groups: Cadets, Juniors, U23s, and Seniors, through to Paralympic Games.

New FIE Licenses

Starting the 2023-24 season, GBR referees Chiara McDermott, David Fielding and Luke Deamer passed the FIE referee exams in Rome in September 2023. They gained four new licenses between them.

David Fielding (SCO) took his first FIE exams in both Foil and Epee and achieved a successful outcome in both. He was joined by Luke Deamer (ENG) and Chiara McDermott (ENG) who took their second weapon FIE exams in Epee and Foil, respectively.

A shoutout to Chiara, as she is the first female referee to achieve a two-weapon FIE license since the Referee Pathway Programme began in 2015.

Read more here.

New EFC C Licenses

Bruce McCaig and Sam McLellan were awarded their EFC C licences for foil and Euan Deamer awarded his EFC C licence for epee, following their performances as referees on the EFC circuit events in 2023-24.

Read more here.

European Championships

Following his success in the FIE epee referee exams, Luke Deamer was selected by the EFC for the Cadet and Junior European Championships held in Naples, Italy from the 22nd – 29th February 2024.

Deamer said, “Having passed my FIE Epee exam in September, I am delighted to have this opportunity to use both my licenses at my first major EFC championship event. Thank you to all those that continue to support my referee development.”

“I look forward to representing Great Britain and working closely with Jon and Georgina in Naples. I’m sure I’ll learn lots that I can bring back to British Fencing competitions!”

Read more here.

Luke Deamer and Chiara McDermott were selected to referee for the U23 European Championships, held in Antalya, Turkey, from June 1st to 4th, 2024.

Read more here. 

2024 Paris Paralympics

Sean Grundy and Mike Salter, two of our most experienced GBR Wheelchair Fencing referees were selected to be referees at the Paralympics in Paris. Sean is mainly a foil specialist, whilst Mike is mainly a sabre specialist, although both can referee other weapons to a high level.

Both have regularly represented both GBR and IWAS on multiple occasions in the past, and both were referees at the delayed games in Tokyo in 2021. Sean was a referee at the World Championships in Terni last year, and Mike was a guest referee at the Asian Para Games last year.

Read more here. 

Looking ahead for the 2024-25 season we are looking forward to supporting referees with their FIE exams and celebrating GBR referees’ successes in the upcoming season.

Click here for the full 2023-24 Annual Report.

Don’t miss the latest news. Subscribe to our weekly summary email, The Fencing Digest, including the previous week’s latest news and announcements. Sign up here.