Fencing at the 1948 Summer Olympics

Dates 30 July – 13 August 1948
Medal Events 7

The venue for the fencing events at the 2nd London Olympics was the regally named Palace of Engineering, one of three buildings on the site built for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924.

Little seemed to have changed in the 12 years since the Berlin Olympics, and the same three nations that had been the most successful in 1936 repeated their triumphs in London. Italy won the most medals with six though the majority of gold medals were shared between France and Hungary. No other nation had won a men’s Olympic title since 1920 and none would so until the Rome Games of 1960.

As an individual Edoardo Mangiarotti was the most successful fencer with three medals, one of each colour, whilst Aladár Gerevich of Hungary and Jéhan de Buhan of France were double Olympic champions.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
Foil, Individual, Men Olympic 3 – 4 August 1948 63 25
Foil, Team, Men Olympic 30 – 31 July 1948 82 16
Épée, Individual, Men Olympic 7 – 9 August 1948 66 25
Épée, Team, Men Olympic 5 – 6 August 1948 113 21
Sabre, Individual, Men Olympic 12 – 13 August 1948 60 24
Sabre, Team, Men Olympic 10 – 11 August 1948 85 17
Foil, Individual, Women Olympic 31 July – 2 August 1948 39 15
294 (255/39) 30 (30/15)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Foil, Individual, Men Jéhan de BuhanFRA Christian d'OriolaFRA Lajos MaszlayHUN
Foil, Team, Men FranceFRA ItalyITA BelgiumBEL
Épée, Individual, Men Gino CantoneITA Oswald ZappelliSUI Edoardo MangiarottiITA
Épée, Team, Men FranceFRA ItalyITA SwedenSWE
Sabre, Individual, Men Aladár GerevichHUN Vincenzo PintonITA Pál KovácsHUN
Sabre, Team, Men HungaryHUN ItalyITA United StatesUSA
Foil, Individual, Women Ilona ElekHUN Karen LachmannDEN Ellen Müller-PreisAUT

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
France FRA 3 1 0 4
Hungary HUN 3 0 2 5
Italy ITA 1 4 1 6
Denmark DEN 0 1 0 1
Switzerland SUI 0 1 0 1
Austria AUT 0 0 1 1
Belgium BEL 0 0 1 1
Sweden SWE 0 0 1 1
United States USA 0 0 1 1