Melissa Kleiß leads crowded international women’s sidesword rankings

Melissa Kleiß still controls the top of HEMA Ratings’ June 2026 underrepresented-genders and women’s steel single sidesword board, but the sharper story is how crowded the chase has become. The board lists 78 entries, and Kleiß at 1845.5 is followed by Anna Solovey at 1681, Clizia Buniotto at 1618.5, Ludovica Lanzieri at 1609.3 and Marcjanna Magdalena Jelińska at 1559.9.

This is not a one-country podium. The top 10 pulls from Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Denmark and the UK-linked club ecosystem, which is exactly what has made the category feel so live this month. The front of the board is international, but it is also tightly stacked, with enough points between first and fifth to keep every strong result meaningful and enough depth behind them to punish any lapse.

The pressure does not stop at the headline names. The board’s club spread runs through Twerchhau e.V., Hema Praha, Ordine delle Lame Scaligere, Olympia Scherma Roma ASD, Akademia Szermierzy, Terca - School of Historical European Swordplay, ARETI - School of Old Bulgarian Saber, Comense Scherma, Københavns Fægteklub, HEMA Łódź - Korsarze, Ars Gladiatoria and Mercian Medieval Fight Club. Fighters such as Irena Matović, Seniha Hazim, Irene Caldi, Kristine Baun, Lydia Achiam and Katarzyna Knapik show how many training cultures are feeding the same rankings table.

That breadth matters because the middle of the field is dense, with competitors packed from the mid-1400s into the low-1200s and several athletes in the 1300-to-1100 band close enough to jump with one strong weekend. HEMA Ratings collects results from as many tournaments as possible, then turns them into weighted ratings through the Glicko-2 system, its modernization of Elo. The site says those ratings help with tournament seeding and tracking individual progress, so every good result can alter both placement and bracket logic.

Kleiß’s hold on the top is also part of a longer pattern. She was already No. 1 in March 2025 at 1860.9, which shows how durable her position has been even as the field around her has grown more crowded. The women’s steel single sidesword board was smaller too, with 49 entries in the women’s-only June 2026 board, compared with 78 in the combined underrepresented-genders and women’s list.

That growth fits the wider HEMA calendar. CombatCon included Under-Represented Genders Longsword among its 2024 tournament events, and Holmgång 2024 in Stockholm framed its women’s and underrepresented-genders longsword division for all women and anyone who identifies as an underrepresented gender. Sidesword itself, a transitional weapon between the medieval arming sword and the Renaissance rapier, now sits inside a competitive structure that is broad, international and still very much in flux. With this many names packed into one board, the next major tournament result could change the order fast.