Month: July 2021

Olympic fencing has moved and evolved considerably over the last one hundred and twenty seven years, and it’s been quite the journey. Understanding how fencing has changed as part of the Olympics can give us insight into what fencing is today and where it will take us tomorrow. 

This is the second of three posts in which we delve into what Olympic fencing is all about. In Part 1, we talked about how the Olympics came about and how fencing fit into them from the beginning of the Modern Olympiad. Here in Part 2, we’ll look at the structure of our sport within the Olympics and how it’s changed over time. Read Part 3 to learn how Olympic fencers get to that level, including the path to qualification and the individual attributes that get fencers to the Olympics. 

First off, let’s go into how fencing got started in the Olympics and what the road has been like to get here. 

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There is no event in the world of sports that holds so high a place as the Olympics. It is held up as the pinnacle of not only sport, but part of what society is striving for in general. This is true of fencing as well as many other sports. The Olympics are complex and simple all at once, and they have a history that reaches back thousands of years, long before the world and realities that we live in today. 

In order to understand how fencing is seated within the Olympics, we have to first understand what the Olympics are. 

This is the first of three posts that will explore what Olympic fencing is all about. We’ll start by exploring the Games as a whole, how they fit into the world and we as the sport of fencing fits into them. In Part 2, we’ll dive deep into the structure of Olympic fencing and how it has evolved. Finally, in Part 3 we’ll go through how Olympic fencers get to that level, including the qualification paths and the personal traits that make Olympic fencers rise to the top of the podium.

Let’s start with a foundation in what the Games are and how they came about, including how fencing became part of this internationally renowned sport competition. 

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