Fencing Trivia
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59 free Fencing trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This fencing trivia quiz covers the sword sport from a 1190 BC Egyptian temple wall to lightsaber bouts on ESPN. The weapons section sorts out foil, épée and sabre: which targets the whole body, which cuts with the edge, how much each may weigh, and how right of way decides a double hit. Then the rules and kit: hits to win a pool bout, a knockout bout and a team match, the 14-metre piste, the lamé and plastron, why fencers wear white, what a black card means, and the French words for the start of a bout. History questions run from the medieval Tower manuscript and the Bolognese school through Angelo's London academy, the founding of the FIE in 1913 and the arrival of electric scoring. The champions include Nedo Nadi's three-weapon sweep, Aladár Gerevich's six Olympics, Edoardo Mangiarotti's 39 medals, Valentina Vezzali, Ramón Fonst, Mariel Zagunis, Lee Kiefer and Ibtihaj Muhammad. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on fencing, its weapons, glossary, federation and individual fencers, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. BrainPickle has separate quizzes on the Olympics and on other combat sports.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which fencing term, an admission of being hit, is now used to concede a point in an argument?
Touché
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.
Q 02In épée, where the whole body is the target, what happens when the two fencers hit at the same instant?
Each fencer scores
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.
Q 03In foil, which part of the body is the valid target?
The torso only
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.
Q 04The fencing term 'parry' shares its root with which of these words?
Parasol
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.
Q 05The word 'fencing' began as a shortened form of which word?
Defence
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.
Q 06Which future US general, an Olympian in 1912, designed the sabre the US Army adopted a year later?
George S. Patton
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.
Q 07Which rule decides who gets the point when both foil fencers hit at the same time?
Right of way
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.
Q 08If nobody scores in the sudden-death minute of a tied fencing bout, who wins?
The winner of a random draw
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.
Q 09On a foil scoring box, red and green lights show valid hits; which colour shows a hit that landed off target?
White
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.
Q 10Olympic team fencing matches, won by the first side to 45 hits, are fought as which kind of contest?
A relay
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.
Q 11Where is the FIE, fencing's world governing body, headquartered?
Lausanne, Switzerland
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.
Q 12Which gesture must fencers make to their opponent, the referee and the spectators before and after every bout?
A salute
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.
Q 13Which Shakespeare tragedy ends with a fencing match fought with a secretly sharpened, poisoned foil?
Hamlet
Q 21Which basic fencing attack throws the front foot forward while the back leg drives the body after it?
A lunge
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.
Q 22What is the conductive over-jacket that lets the scoring box tell on-target from off-target hits called?
Lamé
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.
Q 23What is the underarm protector worn beneath a fencing jacket called?
Plastron
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.
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.
Q 14Which Russian oligarch was elected FIE president in 2008?
Alisher Usmanov
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.
Q 15Fencing made its Olympic debut at which Games?
Athens 1896
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.
Q 16In which James Bond film does a fencing bout at a gentlemen's club escalate into an all-out sword fight?
Die Another Day
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.
Q 17What was the fourth fencing discipline held at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics and never again?
Singlestick
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.
Q 18Why must a foil fencer's rigid chest protector be covered with a layer of soft material?
So hits still register
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.
Q 19Women's sabre made its Olympic debut at which Games?
Athens 2004
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.
Q 20Which heavy metal singer was once ranked among Britain's top fencers and trained with its Olympic squad?
Bruce Dickinson
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.
Q 24Which is the only colour that fencing's rules ban from a competitor's clothing?
Black
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.
Q 25What is the fencing strip called?
The piste
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.
Q 26What happens if a fencer retreats completely off the end of the strip?
A touch is awarded to the opponent
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.
Q 27What is the full French command a referee uses to start a bout?
En garde! Prêts? Allez!
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.
Q 28What is a riposte in fencing?
The defender's hit straight after a parry
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.
Q 29What is a feint?
A false attack meant to provoke a reaction
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.
Q 30A flèche, French for 'arrow', is which kind of fencing attack?
A running attack past the opponent
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.