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Fencing at the Olympic Games

Fencing is one of only five sports have been contested at every summer Olympic Games since 1896. The others are: Athletics, Cycling, Gymnastics and Swimming. The competition rules and fencing weapons used have varied a little over the history of the modern Olympics. Three types of weapon are used in the sport of Olympic fencing today: the Foil, Épée and Sabre. The singlestick was featured in the 1904 Olympic Games, but it was already declining in popularity at that time.

Fencing match at the Rio Olympic Games

For the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, changes were made to the program so that both team and individual events are held in all three weapons for both men and women.

Paris 2024 Olympic Fencing Events

There are currently 12 fencing events at the Olympics. There are six medal events for men and women.

Women & Men

• Individual sabre
• team sabre
• Individual épée
• Team épée
• Individual foil
• Team foil

Trivia

• The women's foil event was first included in the program for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.
• Austrian Otto Herschmann won the silver in the team sabre fencing event in the 1912 Games, and was at the time the president of the Austrian Olympic Committee. He is the only sitting national Olympic committee president to win a medal in the Olympics. Herschmann died in 1942 in a Nazi concentration camp.
• Italian Nedo Nadi produced one of the greatest of all Olympic performances in 1920. He won the individual foil and sabre titles and led the Italians to victory in all three team events, for a record of five fencing medals at the same Games.
• Four Hungarian Olympic fencing gold medallists died in German concentration camps during World War Two. They were Oszkar Gerde (winner 1908, 1912); Janos Garay (1928 winner); Endre Kabos (1932, 1936); and Attila Petschauer (1928, 1932).
• The best all-time performing fencers at the Olympic Games are Italian Edoardo Mangiarotti (13 medals) and Hungarian Aladár Gerevich (7 gold). See more on the Greatest Fencers at the Olympics.
• A fencing event is also part of another Olympic sport, the modern pentathlon.

Related Pages

• For more information about the Sport of Fencing
• Singlesticks, a fencing-type event, was once part of the Olympics
• La Canne, or French stick fighting, was a demonstration sport at the 1924 Olympics.
• See more on the Greatest Fencers at the Olympics.
• See also information about fencing at the Commonwealth Games
• Wheelchair fencing is at the Paralympics
• About Fencing Major Events
• List of Olympic Sports

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