Junior and cadet fencing in 2026: Rio's 18 titles, and what comes next.

Status on 26 October 2026

The 2026 Junior and Cadet World Championships are finished. They ran from 1 to 9 April 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, at Carioca Arena 1 and the Rio Olympic Velodrome, according to Wikipedia; the FIE's Information Letter 6-26 confirms that its Bureau and Executive Committee met in Rio at the time. The two continental youth championships held earlier in the year are also finished. The Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, the 2027 Worlds and the 2028 Worlds in Rome are still to come.

About the sources. The FIE's results pages could not be read, so the medallists below come from Wikipedia's championship page, a secondary source, checked against USA Fencing's daily reports where those were read. Countries are given as Wikipedia gives them.

How the championships are set up

Under the FIE's Organisation Rules (August 2026 edition), the Junior and Cadet World Championships have twelve individual events, six junior and six cadet, plus six junior team events (o.37). There are no cadet team events, and Wikipedia's results list none. Cadet events are for fencers under 17 and junior events for fencers under 20, in each case at midnight on 31 December of the current season (o.29.2 and o.29.3). Individual events use pools followed by a full direct-elimination table with no bout for third place, so both losing semi-finalists are placed equal third (o.89 to o.94). That is why each individual event below has two bronze medallists. More on the age groups is on ages and categories.

On Russian and Belarusian fencers: a law firm's news page reports that, under FIE Information Letter 29-25 of 27 December 2025, cadet and junior fencers holding Russian or Belarusian passports were no longer registered as Individual Neutral Athletes from January 2026. The FIE letter itself was not read, so this is unconfirmed. Wikipedia's results table lists Russia by name at Rio.

Junior men

USA Fencing reported Will Morrill's junior sabre silver on 1 April 2026, and on 3 April called the junior men's team sabre title the team's fourth world title in a row.

Junior women

Cadet men

USA Fencing reported Aiden Tse's cadet sabre gold on 2 April 2026, at his first Junior and Cadet World Championships.

Cadet women

Two fencers won both the junior and the cadet title in their weapon, as Wikipedia records it: Jaelyn Liu (United States) in women's foil and Pan Qimiao (China) in women's sabre. Wikipedia's medal table puts the United States first with 6 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze, then China (3, 4, 0) and Hong Kong, China (2, 1, 0), with 26 nations winning medals. That table was not checked against the FIE.

Continental youth championships, early 2026

Both rest on Wikipedia alone; event-by-event winners were not collected.

Still to come

• Youth Olympic Games, Dakar 2026 (upcoming). The Games run from 31 October to 13 November 2026, with competition starting on 30 October, and fencing is one of the three sports that close the Games, held in Diamniadio, according to Francs Jeux (31 May 2026). FIE Information Letter 6-26 refers to the fencing schedule and officials for Dakar. Fencing New Zealand's call for interest, seen only as a search-result extract, describes six events: men's and women's individual epee, foil and sabre. The official event list was not read, so that is unconfirmed.
• Junior and Cadet World Championships 2027, April 2027 (upcoming; host given two ways). The FIE announced Estonia as host in late 2024, as Kursiv Uzbekistan reported; a search summary gave Tallinn, 9 to 17 April 2027, from a listing that was not read. FIE Information Letter 10-26 (8 July 2026) then records that on 26 June 2026 the Executive Committee made an urgent call for bids to move the event, previously scheduled for Estonia, after being told visas could no longer be guaranteed for every member federation, with a decision planned for 15 September 2026. That decision was not found. British Fencing's events page lists Ankara, Turkiye, 1 to 15 April 2027, but the entry's link points to a 2026 page, so the listing may be partly out of date. Neither host was confirmed on the FIE's site.
• Cadet and Junior European Championships 2027: February 2027, host to be confirmed, per British Fencing alone.
• Junior and Cadet World Championships 2028: awarded by the FIE Congress of 22 November 2025 to the Italian Fencing Federation, for Rome, 1 to 9 April 2028.