The Selectors’ Commission are a group of senior experienced fencers who consistently put a lot of work in throughout the year in the background to pick athletes and teams to attend the highest profile overseas competitions to represent New Zealand.
Fencing in New Zealand is organised and operated by volunteers. Working as a Selector is a volunteer role. It is often a frustrating and unenviable job, which they try to do as fairly and transparently as possible according to a defined set of rules – the Selection Criteria.
The Selectors work hard to be impartial. They work within the guidelines of the existing Selection Criteria, and direction from the Board if there are extenuating circumstances. Each of the Selectors is recused if they have a conflict of interest over any events or particular fencers.
The current Selection Criteria is based on fencers having reached a certain standard and level of experience before selection to fence in international selection events.
Fencers may choose to appeal their non-selection for an event through the FeNZ Triage Committee. The Triage Panel are selected from a group of volunteers from the Fencing community, and they endeavour to look at every appeal fairly and without any form of bias. They are totally independent of the Selectors and they are also chosen to avoid any conflicts of interest. The Triage Panel consider whether the Selectors have followed correct process and will refer any questions or decisions back to the Selectors where they need clarification or they disagree with the process followed.
On a very rare occasion an appellant may also choose to escalate their Appeal to the NZ Sports Tribunal, a completely independent body chaired by a retired District Court Judge. The Sports Tribunal put together a highly experienced committee to review each specific appeal. These are experts in this field and work across every sport, and handle Appeals right up to Olympic selection level.
For those interested, please see below the findings of any Sports Tribunal appeals involving Fencing NZ Selections in recent years, including the recent decision for non-selection to the World Junior Championships.
https://sportstribunal.org.nz/?s=fencing
As I hope everyone knows, the current FeNZ Selection Policy is under review and an updated version is expected to be released in the next few months with a view to being used for selections for tournaments from the start of January 2026.