59 Fun Facts About Fencing

Which fencing term, an admission of being hit, is now used to concede a point in an argument?

Touché. It is French for 'touched', the word a fencer called out to own up to a hit; within a few years of reaching English it was conceding good points in conversation too.

In épée, where the whole body is the target, what happens when the two fencers hit at the same instant?

Each fencer scores. Épée keeps the logic of the duel it grew out of: whoever hits first gets the point, and if the two hits land within 40 milliseconds of each other, both count.

In foil, which part of the body is the valid target?

The torso only. The weapon descends from the light sword nobles trained with for duels, and its rules still reward only the thrust to the body: a hit on an arm or leg stops the action but scores nothing.

The fencing term 'parry' shares its root with which of these words?

Parasol. A parry wards off a blade and a parasol the sun; English probably took 'parry' from parez!, the 'ward it off!' that French fencing masters called out to their pupils.

The word 'fencing' began as a shortened form of which word?

Defence. 'Fence' began as a clipped form of it, which is why one word gives us both the swordsman's art and the barrier round a garden: each is a way of defending.

Which future US general, an Olympian in 1912, designed the sabre the US Army adopted a year later?

George S. Patton. At the Stockholm Games the future general's worst event was, of all things, shooting: he placed 21st with the pistol, which cost him a medal, yet he came fourth in the fencing.

Which rule decides who gets the point when both foil fencers hit at the same time?

Right of way. The referee reconstructs the exchange and gives the hit to the fencer who attacked first, unless that attack was parried, in which case the priority passes to the defender.

If nobody scores in the sudden-death minute of a tied fencing bout, who wins?

The winner of a random draw. Lots are drawn before the extra minute starts, so one fencer already knows that a scoreless minute means defeat and has to come forward and attack.

On a foil scoring box, red and green lights show valid hits; which colour shows a hit that landed off target?

White. Such a hit scores nothing, yet it stops the action and wipes out any hit that follows it, so a foilist can throw away a perfectly good touch by landing off target a moment before it.

Olympic team fencing matches, won by the first side to 45 hits, are fought as which kind of contest?

A relay. Three fencers a side take turns and the score carries on from bout to bout, so a team that trails badly can still be hauled level by one fencer in a single bout.

Where is the FIE, fencing's world governing body, headquartered?

Lausanne, Switzerland. The FIE works from the Maison du Sport International, an office complex the city and the International Olympic Committee opened in 2006 to draw sports federations to the IOC's home town.

Which gesture must fencers make to their opponent, the referee and the spectators before and after every bout?

A salute. Mask tucked under the arm, each fencer lifts the guard to the chin and lowers the blade; the rule book calls it a gesture of civility, and a fencer who refuses can be thrown out.

Which Shakespeare tragedy ends with a fencing match fought with a secretly sharpened, poisoned foil?

Hamlet. Laertes is handed a foil left 'unbated', meaning unblunted, and tipped with poison; the two men swap weapons in the scuffle, so both are killed by the same blade.

Which Russian oligarch was elected FIE president in 2008?

Alisher Usmanov. He was re-elected by acclamation as late as 2021, then stood aside in March 2022, the day after the European Union put him on its sanctions list over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Fencing made its Olympic debut at which Games?

Athens 1896. Fencing has been at every Summer Games since, and those first Games bent their amateur rule for it alone: fencing masters, who taught for a living, got a foil event of their own.

In which James Bond film does a fencing bout at a gentlemen's club escalate into an all-out sword fight?

Die Another Day. Madonna, who sang the theme song, turns up as the club's fencing instructor, and Bob Anderson, a British Olympic fencer turned Hollywood swordmaster, worked on the film.

What was the fourth fencing discipline held at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics and never again?

Singlestick. Only three men entered, all of them Americans, so everyone went home with a medal; President Theodore Roosevelt played it too, and once wrote to his children about the bump it left over his eye.

Why must a foil fencer's rigid chest protector be covered with a layer of soft material?

So hits still register. A foil's point has to be pressed in to score, and on hard, smooth plastic it can be deflected instead; the same rule makes the protector compulsory for women and optional for men.

Women's sabre made its Olympic debut at which Games?

Athens 2004. The IOC let women's sabre in only if fencing's medal count stayed the same, so two of the six team events had to sit out each Games in turn, an arrangement that lasted until Tokyo 2020.

Which heavy metal singer was once ranked among Britain's top fencers and trained with its Olympic squad?

Bruce Dickinson. The Iron Maiden frontman, who is also a qualified airline pilot, trained with the squad in the 1980s and joked that he gave it up because he felt silly fencing 18-year-olds.

Which basic fencing attack throws the front foot forward while the back leg drives the body after it?

A lunge. The word started out as fencing jargon, clipped in the 1730s from the French allonger, 'to lengthen', and only later came to mean any sudden rush forward.

What is the conductive over-jacket that lets the scoring box tell on-target from off-target hits called?

Lamé. Like the glittering dress fabric of the same name, it is woven through with metal thread; épée fencers go without one, since their whole body is target and there is nothing to tell apart.

What is the underarm protector worn beneath a fencing jacket called?

Plastron. It is a half-jacket with a single sleeve, worn on the sword-arm side, and it has no seam under the arm, because a seam there would line up with the jacket's own and leave a weak spot.

Which is the only colour that fencing's rules ban from a competitor's clothing?

Black. Tradition, not law, keeps most fencers in their familiar pale kit: the rule book lets a country choose its colours, so long as all its fencers wear the same national uniform and none of it is black.

What is the fencing strip called?

The piste. It is 14 metres long, and in competition it is a conductive surface earthed to the scoring box, so that a point which stabs the floor by mistake does not light up as a hit.

What happens if a fencer retreats completely off the end of the strip?

A touch is awarded to the opponent. Stepping off the side costs only a metre of ground, but going off the back costs a point, which is why the last two metres of the strip are marked out as a warning.

What is the full French command a referee uses to start a bout?

En garde! Prêts? Allez! It means 'On guard! Ready? Go!', and the question is a real one: a fencer who is not ready may say so, and both must then stand completely still until the final word.

What is a riposte in fencing?

The defender's hit straight after a parry. The word was fencing jargon for a century and a half before English speakers borrowed it, in the 1860s, for a quick and cutting reply.

What is a feint?

A false attack meant to provoke a reaction. Put one or more of them in front of the real thrust and you have a compound attack: the defender parries the fake and is hit by what follows.

A flèche, French for 'arrow', is which kind of fencing attack?

A running attack past the opponent. The fencer's feet cross as in a sprint, and since crossing the feet going forward is banned in sabre, sabreurs came up with a flying leap of their own, nicknamed the flunge.

What is a 'flick' in foil and épée?

A whip of the blade onto hidden target. The bendy blade curls its point round a parry onto the back or shoulder; around 2005 the scoring boxes were retimed so the tip must stay pressed for longer, to make it harder.

In fencing, what is an appel, from the French for 'call'?

A stamp of the foot. The bang on the floor once served as fair warning that an attack was coming; fencers now use it the other way round, to startle an opponent or to disguise the real attack.

What does a black card mean in fencing?

Expulsion from the competition. In 2023 Ukraine's Olga Kharlan was shown one for offering her blade, not her hand, to a Russian she had just beaten; a day later she was reinstated and promised a place at the Paris Olympics.

Which word for a minor weakness of character began as the fencing term for the weaker, tip half of a blade?

Foible. It is an old French spelling of faible, 'weak', and it has a twin: the strong half of the blade near the guard is the forte, which is why a person's strong point is called their forte.

In which city did Italian master Domenico Angelo run the 1760s school credited with turning fencing from killing art to sport?

London. Angelo reached England in the 1750s, became fencing master to the future George III, and made his house in Soho the most fashionable school of arms in the city.

Royal Armouries Ms. I.33, the oldest surviving European fencing manual, was written in which language?

Latin. The book seems to be a clergyman's work: its pictures show a priest teaching a student to fight with sword and small shield, and on the last two pages the student is replaced by a woman called Walpurgis.

The earliest known depiction of a fencing contest, carved on a temple wall around 1190 BC, is in which country?

Egypt. The carving, in the temple of Medinet Habu at Luxor, shows fencing and wrestling bouts being staged to celebrate a military victory: swordplay put on as a show, not fought as a battle.

Which Star Wars villain's lightsaber duels were performed by Bob Anderson, a British Olympic fencer?

Darth Vader. Anderson, who fenced for Britain at the 1952 Olympics, wore the suit for the duels in two of the films, a secret kept until Mark Hamill said in 1983 that he deserved the credit.

Which part of a fencing weapon sits at the very end of the handle, locking it together and balancing the blade?

The pommel. English made a verb of it: 'pummel' is the same word respelled, and to pummel someone was at first to beat them as if with the knob on a sword's handle.

The Mensur, a ritual sword bout once prized for the facial scars it left, belongs to student fraternities in which country?

Germany. The two students stand at arm's length and may not dodge or flinch, because the point is to take a cut without showing fear, not to win; the scar it left was once worn with pride.

Aladár Gerevich won fencing gold at six Olympics in a row, from 1932 to 1960, for which country?

Hungary. Told at 50 that he was too old for the 1960 Games, Gerevich challenged the rest of the national sabre team to bouts, beat every one of them, and went to Rome to win a seventh gold.

Which Italian won 13 Olympic fencing medals between 1936 and 1960, a total no fencer had passed by 2024?

Edoardo Mangiarotti. He and his brother Dario were both taught by their father, and in the 1952 Olympic épée final the two of them finished first and second, Edoardo taking the gold.

Which Italian won five fencing golds at the 1920 Olympics, with titles in all three weapons?

Nedo Nadi. His father, a fencing master, thought the épée an undisciplined weapon and refused to teach it, so Nedo and his brother practised it in secret and went on to win team épée gold.

Which Italian foilist won individual Olympic gold in 2000, 2004 and 2008, then entered her country's parliament?

Valentina Vezzali. She learned to fence in Jesi, a town of about 40,000 people that also produced the Olympic foil champions Giovanna Trillini and Elisa Di Francisca; she beat Trillini in the 2004 final.

Ramón Fonst, who at 16 beat the home fencers to épée gold at Paris 1900, was which nation's first Olympic champion?

Cuba. Fonst had been taught by French masters, the very school he beat; he won three more golds in St. Louis four years later, and his nickname played on his second surname, Segundo: 'never second'.

Which American became the first US woman to win Olympic fencing gold, in sabre in 2004?

Mariel Zagunis. She had missed qualifying by a single ranking place and got in only when Nigeria turned down its spot; ten weeks later the 19-year-old won America's first Olympic fencing gold in a century.

Which American foilist won individual gold at Tokyo 2020 and both individual and team gold in Paris 2024?

Lee Kiefer. In the Paris final she faced her own teammate, Lauren Scruggs, and beat her 15-6; four days later the two of them were on the same side, winning the team title together.

Which doll brand based its first hijab-wearing doll on American Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad?

Barbie. At Rio 2016 Muhammad, a sabre fencer, had become the first American woman to compete at an Olympics in a hijab, winning a team bronze, and Mattel made the doll for its series honouring women who break barriers.

Which Paris landmark hosted the fencing at the 2024 Olympics?

Grand Palais. The hall was built for the Paris world's fair of 1900, and that year's Olympic fencing was part of the fair, held in its festival hall and a public garden; in 2024 the sport moved into the fair's showpiece.

Edgar Cheung Ka Long won men's foil gold at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 for which team?

Hong Kong. In Tokyo he was seeded only 15th and upset the reigning champion; three years later he kept the title by a single hit, beating Italy's Filippo Macchi 15-14 in the final.

Which hero of an 1897 French play makes up a poem while fighting a duel and strikes home on its last line?

Cyrano de Bergerac. He announces the plan to his opponent first, lectures him on the rules of a ballade as they cross swords, and keeps his promise: 'At the envoi's end, I touch!'

In which fantasy film do two duellists trade the names of real fencing masters such as Bonetti, Capo Ferro and Agrippa?

The Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya and his masked opponent are name-dropping genuine Renaissance masters, and the two actors learned to fence with either hand so that they could perform the duel themselves.

What is the cable that runs up a fencer's sleeve to connect the weapon to the scoring system called?

A body wire. Its three-pin plug has the pins spaced unevenly, 15 millimetres on one side of the centre and 20 on the other, so that it can never be pushed in the wrong way round.

How had Soviet pentathlete Boris Onishchenko rigged the épée that got him thrown out of the 1976 Olympics?

A concealed switch. A pad under the leather of the grip lit the scoreboard without any touch; Britain's Jim Fox, 'hit' while leaping clear, had the weapon examined, and his team went on to take the gold.

Fencing clothing must resist a force of 800 newtons, but which part of the kit has to withstand twice that?

The mask bib. It hangs over the throat, the gap a blade would find if it slid up the jacket and under the mask, so the rules ask it to stand up to 1,600 newtons.

Which country's Shin A-lam sat in tears on the fencing strip for over an hour after a disputed 2012 Olympic defeat?

South Korea. The clock had been reset with one second left and her opponent scored in it; Shin stayed put while her team's appeal was heard and rejected, then had to return for the bronze bout, which she also lost.

Which future president of the International Olympic Committee won Olympic gold in team foil in 1976?

Thomas Bach. He won it in Montreal, and as IOC president in 2023 he stepped into a fencing row himself, promising an Olympic place to a Ukrainian who had been disqualified for refusing to shake a Russian's hand.

Wheelchair fencing began in 1954 at the games Ludwig Guttmann ran for patients at which English hospital?

Stoke Mandeville. Guttmann brought fencing in to help patients with spinal injuries recover, and his hospital games grew into the Paralympics, where fencers still compete from wheelchairs clamped into a metal frame.

Which future prime minister won the Public Schools fencing championship as a 17-year-old in 1892?

Winston Churchill. It was a bright spot in a patchy school career at Harrow: he did poorly in most of his exams, and his father had him prepared for a career in the army.