Solovey leads tight women’s steel single sidesword HEMA ratings race

Anna Solovey led the June 2026 women’s steel single sidesword ratings with 1616.8 points, but the margin at the top was razor-thin. Ludovica Lanzieri sat second on 1608.7 and Clizia Buniotto third on 1604.9, leaving just 11.9 points between first and third and only 8.1 between Solovey and Lanzieri.

The leaderboard listed 49 entries, and that crowded frame only sharpened the pressure on the podium chase. HEMA Ratings describes itself as an effort to collect results from as many tournaments as possible and turn them into cumulative performance ratings, so this was not a one-off result sheet but a rolling measure of who has been converting bracket wins into ranking points. In a system this compressed, one strong outing can do more than protect a place; it can flip the order at the very top.

That fragility stood out even more in the category table. Women’s steel single sidesword showed just 15 rated fighters and 84 fights, with the page last recalculated 11 days before the homepage snapshot. By comparison, mixed and men’s steel single sidesword showed 153 fighters, 1,747 tournaments and 9,974 fights. The gap in scale matters. The women’s field is still compact, but it is already deep enough that the wrong draw or an early exit can erase months of small gains, while a breakout run can lift a fencer past more than one rival at once.

Behind the top three, Irene Caldi, Irena Matović, Marcjanna Magdalena Jelińska, Seniha Hazim, Mary Mae Bernaldez, Leonarda Jurčec and Sandra Spanò filled out the top 10. Laurel Rogers, Alexia Detraz, Silvia Timpanaro, Umberta Emanuela Riboldi, Juliette Vajas, Sofia Fradegrada, Kristina Kovačić, Piper Maerker and Anita Greggio kept the middle of the table crowded enough to threaten the leaders if the next tournament weekend breaks the right way.

The club spread reinforced that point. Hema Praha, Olympia Scherma Roma ASD, Ordine delle Lame Scaligere, Comense Scherma, Terca - School of Historical European Swordplay and ARETI - School of Old Bulgarian Saber all appeared near the top, showing a sidesword scene with several national centers of gravity rather than one dominant circuit. HEMA Alliance describes historical European martial arts as multiple arts rather than a single style, and the ratings table reflected that reality: a narrow elite, a broad middle and enough international overlap to make the next result a genuine title-race swing.