Fencing at the 2016 Summer Olympics

The International Fencing Federation continued to maintain the rotation system as they had in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 with ten events, five each for men and women (three individual and two team). In 2016, the men’s team sabre and the women’s team foil were the two events dropped from the programme, and were replaced by men’s team épée and women’s team sabre. A total of 213 fencers from 46 nations, and one independent Olympic athlete, competed in the Carioca Arena 3 inside the Barra Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca, 105 were men and 108 women. They qualified primarily based on official rankings with further individual places awarded at four zonal qualifying tournaments.

After the rise of non-European fencers in 2012, a number of the traditional fencing nations regained the command in Rio. The most successful was Russia, who had the highest number of competitors, 16, and they collected seven medals including four gold, with their women contributing five of the seven medals including three gold. Russia’s gold medal haul was only surpassed by France in 1900 and Italy in 1920 with five gold medals each. In Rio, Hungary came second with four medals including two gold, one of them won in their traditional weapon, the men’s individual sabre. They were followed by Italy and France while South Korea, with one gold and one bronze, established themselves among the top nations as did the United States with two silver and two bronze medals. Tunisian veteran Ines Boubakri won her country’s first ever medal in fencing with a bronze in the foil. One of the biggest losers was Germany, who had only four individual fencers qualified, and did not bring home a medal of any colour for the first time since the boycotted 1980 Olympics in Moscow.