Melissa Hainsworth tops crowded international women’s sword and buckler rankings

Melissa Hainsworth held first place in the June 2026 underrepresented-genders and women’s steel sword and buckler rankings with 1,774.5 points, but the chase behind her was tight enough to keep the table live. Alessandra Ghedini sat second on 1,726.5, only 48 points back, while Emilia Skirmuntt was third at 1,700.8 and Michele Gulley fourth at 1,661.5. Charlotte Barlow rounded out the top five at 1,630.5 in a field that stretched to 172 fighters, a size that gave the category the feel of a real international circuit rather than a closed list.

The names behind Hainsworth showed how much movement could still come from one strong weekend. Ghedini, of HEMA Ravenna, and Skirmuntt, of The School of the Sword, were close enough to turn the rankings with a single deep run. Gulley, from HEMA Lexington, was still within striking distance if the leaders stumbled or if she picked up a major result in a busy event block. Barlow, from Smart HEMA Clubs, was further back but still inside the range where one tournament could change the shape of the top five.

The depth under the leaders was just as telling. Sara Pacitto, Nicole Lombardi, Arianna Scarselli, Eleonora Manoni and Martina Bombardi filled out the next layer, with the same Italian clubs repeatedly surfacing in the middle of the table. The mix was wider than Italy alone, though, with competitors from Britain, the United States, Sweden, Poland, France, Russia and Canada all appearing in the category. That spread gave the rankings a tournament-calendar feel, with results from several active HEMA hubs feeding the same ladder.

The women’s-only sword and buckler table was smaller at 107 entries and had Ghedini first, followed by Lombardi, Scarselli, Manoni and Bombardi. The fact that the top names carried across both views underlined how strong the leading women were across the category bands HEMA Ratings uses. HEMA Ratings says it gathers tournament results from as many events as possible and turns them into ratings used for seeding and tracking progress, and its June 2026 events page showed active competition across women’s steel longsword, women’s steel sabre and underrepresented-genders arming sword and buckler divisions. In a field this international and this crowded, every busy weekend could still redraw the table.