Olympic fencing mixes the ancient and the modern, combining rules laid down more than 500 years ago with electronic scoring systems and Kevlar jackets. The delicate balance of old and new has sustained the sport since its debut at the first modern Olympics in 1896.
The sport’s three disciplines — sabre, foil and epee — require weapons of differing sizes and styles, but they share one thing in common: The best blades are made from maraging steel, a high-strength alloy used in everything from airplane landing gear to missile casings. What makes this steel ideal for fencing is a crack in the blade tends to spread 10 times slower than a crack in carbon steel, so the blades are more robust and won’t break as often. Manufacturers have experimented with other materials, like carbon-fiber composites, but for fencers, nothing beats the feel of steel.
“Your sword is basically an extension of your own arm,” said Eric Mallet, a former member of France’s Junior National team who now runs the Austin Fencers Club in Austin, Texas. “There are ways to make blades with different materials, but fencers are unanimous about not liking the way those blades feel, the way they bend, the way they respond to your hand.” Of the three weapons, the sabre is the shortest with a maximum blade length of 88 centimetres and a weight limit of 500 grams. Points are scored by a combination of sticking and slashing, a style that honors the sabre’s ancestor, the cavalry sword. The best sabreists, like two-time gold medalist Mariel Zagunis (whom we’ll see competing in the 2012 Summer Games), are a tightly knit combination of quickness and explosiveness as they target the opponent’s upper body.
The medium-sized weapon is the foil, originally used as a training weapon for the other disciplines. It has the same 500-gram weight limit as the sabre, but its tapering blade is about 2.5 centimetres longer. Practically all Olympic-level foilists, including 2012 Olympian Alexander Massialas, use a pistol-style grip, rather than the traditional straight handle, for improved strength and control. Control is paramount, as points are scored only with the tip of the blade, which must be placed in a small target area. And the largest of the three is the epee, which can weigh up to 770 grams and has a maximum blade length of 90 centimetres. The epee, used by athletes like Maya Lawrence and Seth Kelsey, is the closest peer to the historical dueling sword, with a stiff triangular blade for stabbing the opponent anywhere on the body.
To keep track of the action, fencing employs a scoring system based on opening or closing electric circuits. In sabre, fencers wear electrically conductive jackets, masks, and gloves. Each sword is wired through a socket in the handguard, so when the blade strikes an area of the opponent’s body covered by conductive material, a current flows through a cord and illuminates a light on the scoring box.
Any part of the blade might set off a scoring touch in sabre, but to suit the thrusting style of epee and foil, the blades are equipped with a push-button tip. In foil, the circuit is complete when the foilist plugs the weapon in to a wire that runs to the scoring machine. A hit depresses the tip, breaking the circuit and tripping a scoring light: Red or green for hits within the target area, covered by a conductive vest; and white or yellow for off-target hits. Fencers forgo wearing conductive material in the epee, where the entire body is a target, and rely again on wired blades with push-button tips that register a hit on any non-grounded surface.
At the Olympics and the World Championships, fencing does away with many of the wires by using a wireless scoring system, but such a system can only be used in situations where few people are competing simultaneously. Too many people introduces interference that disrupts the system.
Spectators may worry about the safety of the fencers in the middle of all that flashing steel, but those uniforms are made of Kevlar and other ballistic-grade fabrics, and masks must be able to support 12 kilograms of force. A 2008 study by the United States Fencing Association found that the sport was significantly safer than football, soccer or basketball. “In the last 20 years, the International Fencing Federation has made a tremendous amount of effort to make equipment and the fights extremely safe,” Mallet said.
