HEMA Ratings' June rapier board showcases global club spread

Kristine Rinka at 1759 and Melissa Kleiß at 1715.9 headline a June board that looks less like a closed ladder and more like a map of modern historical fencing. The underrepresented-genders and women’s steel single rapier list has 167 entries, and the clubs behind the top names stretch across countries, styles, and local training cultures. That breadth is the real story here: dominance is still real, but it is no longer concentrated in one lane.

A board that reads like a map

Rinka of HEMA Riga sits first, and Kleiß of Twerchhau e.V. is right behind her, but the interest starts when you keep moving down the table. Minna Vasarainen of EHMS is third at 1639.1, Martha Humber of Diamond Rose Academie D'Armes is fourth, Geraldine Farías of Centro de Esgrima Histórica is fifth, Toni Santoyo McLeod of Dawn Duellists Society is sixth, Sara Gianotto of Accademia Romana d'Armi is seventh, Rashelle DeBolt of Noble Science Academy is eighth, Emilia Skirmuntt of The School of the Sword is ninth, and Blandine Fallon of La Compagnie Médiévale rounds out the top ten.

That is not the shape of a narrow circuit. It is a spread that reaches through Riga, Germany, Finland, Spain, the United States, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, France, Norway, Canada and Australia, with clubs like Columbus United Fencing Club, Stockholmspolisens Idrottsförening Fäktning, Comense Scherma, Moose Historical Fencing, La Guilde d’Escrime Historique, Olympia Scherma Roma ASD, New Haven Historical Fencing, Western Swordsmanship Technique and Research, Akademia Szermierzy, Mordhau Historical Combat, Københavns Fægteklub, Academy of Steel and Morgan Wyrd filling out the same competitive picture. The result is a top table that feels international in a literal sense, not just in the polite, default way sports previews sometimes claim.

Why Rinka and Kleiß matter

Rinka and Kleiß are useful entry points because they show two different kinds of strength. Rinka’s 1759 gives HEMA Riga a clear summit marker, while Kleiß’s 1715.9 keeps Twerchhau e.V. in immediate striking range. When the gap at the top is measured but not yawning, it usually means the field is competitive enough to punish a bad day and deep enough to reward sustained work.

That depth matters even more in single rapier, where exact timing and tactical patience can separate a clean hit from a missed line by a fraction of a beat. A board like this says the discipline is maturing: not just producing a few elite fencers, but producing elite fencers in more places, through more clubs, and with less dependence on one dominant school. The old model was a single powerhouse bending the ranking to its will. This looks more like several strong pipelines forcing one another upward.

The middle of the table is where the sport breathes

The rank list does not flatten after the top ten. It keeps moving through a thick band of serious names, with Aristogeneia Toumpa of Columbus United Fencing Club, Ilaria Torre of Stockholmspolisens Idrottsförening Fäktning, Irene Caldi of Comense Scherma, Rowan Etzel of Moose Historical Fencing, Charlotte Limeburner of La Guilde d’Escrime Historique, Ludovica Lanzieri of Olympia Scherma Roma ASD, Isabel Branch of New Haven Historical Fencing, Michael Thompson of Western Swordsmanship Technique and Research, Joanna Pawlak of Akademia Szermierzy, Kari Baker of Mordhau Historical Combat, Lydia Achiam of Københavns Fægteklub, Melissa Hainsworth of Academy of Steel and Morgan Wyrd all sitting close enough together to keep the board volatile.

That volatility is a good sign, not a warning light. The page also shows Robin Conrad, Ekaterina Rybina, Laurel Rogers, Evgeniya Isaeva, Anna Wilbeck, Leona Ninteau and James Utley climbing in the teens and twenties, which tells you the middle of the board is not frozen. In a technical weapon like single rapier, that kind of movement usually points to clubs that are building depth, not just collecting one-off results from a star. New Haven Historical Fencing at rank 17 is a neat example of that North American presence: the sport’s strength is not confined to Europe, even if Europe still anchors much of the competitive map.

How to read the numbers on HEMA Ratings

HEMA Ratings is built to do one thing well: collect results from as many HEMA tournaments as possible and turn them into ratings. It uses the Glicko-2 algorithm, and the site shows two core figures for each fighter, weighted rating and rank. The rank is simply the fighter’s position in the sorted table, while the weighted rating is the number that reflects the site’s rating system.

That distinction matters because a board like this is not a championship bracket. It is a rolling snapshot of competitive activity, useful for seeding tournaments and for tracking individual progress over time. The June single rapier board is especially informative because it captures how often women’s and underrepresented-genders rapier is being fought across a wide range of clubs, rather than concentrating only on a few heavily trafficked events. HEMA Ratings’ own organizer tools and FighterFinder 5000 also show how broad that infrastructure has become, with categories including Mixed & Men’s Steel Rapier and Dagger, Women’s Steel Rapier and Dagger, and Underrepresented Genders and Women’s Steel Rapier and Dagger.

The infrastructure behind the spread

This kind of geographic spread does not happen by accident. It depends on a scene that has built real support structures around tournaments, recording, and shared knowledge. The HEMA Alliance supports the Historical European Martial Arts community across the world, Wiktenauer bills itself as the world’s largest library of HEMA books and manuscripts, and HEMA Scorecard provides free online software for running HEMA tournaments.

Put together, those tools explain why the June board can be this broad and this mobile at the same time. Clubs are not just training in isolation and hoping to be noticed. They are plugged into a system that records results, tracks progress, supports event operations, and makes comparison possible across countries and styles. That is what a mature competitive field looks like: not a single kingdom, but an ecosystem with enough structure for new pockets of strength to emerge and enough pressure for old hierarchies to keep getting tested.