Épée, Individual, Men

The French team were the 1951 team World Champions so it was a major shock to see all three French fencers eliminated before the final pool. The individual champion at those championships was Italy’s Edoardo Mangiarotti. Edoardo, together with brother Dario , made it easily to the final and went on to win his only individual Olympic gold of a 24-year, 13-medal career. Dario won a barrage for the silver medal to complete a rare sibling 1-2 whilst Oswald Zappelli of Switzerland repeated his bronze medal performance of 1952. The unfortunate Léon Buck placed fourth as he had done as part of the Luxembourg team.

In the pools, if two or more fencers had the same number of victories and the tie had to be broken to determine which fencer(s) qualified for the next round or to determine the gold medalist in the final round, then barrage bouts were fenced to resolve the tie. In all other cases, ties were resolved by whichever fencers had the fewest number of touches received or, if there was a tie in touches received, then by the greatest number of touches given. The number of touches scored in the barrage bouts is not known.