Fencing at the Olympic Games since 1896.

Athens 1896 and the professionals

Olympedia says fencing made its debut at Athens 1896 and has been contested at every modern Summer Games since. At the 1896 and 1900 Games it was the only sport in which professionals, the fencing masters, were allowed to compete.

Wikipedia lists three events at Athens 1896: men's individual foil, men's individual sabre and men's masters foil. Olympedia lists two entrants in the masters' foil, Joanni Perronet of France and Leon Pyrgos of Greece, and NBC Olympics, an IOC broadcast partner, says Pyrgos won Greece's first gold medal of the modern Games. Olympedia's page on Eugene-Henri Gravelotte, seen only in a search summary, calls him the first French Olympic champion, as winner of the 1896 foil.

Wikipedia records masters' events only at 1896 (foil) and 1900 (foil, epee and sabre, plus an epee event open to both amateurs and masters), and a men's singlestick event in 1904.

When each weapon's men's events began

The years come from Wikipedia's table of Olympic fencing events (secondary), with the 1908 and 1920 foil notes from NBC Olympics. Olympedia's page for each edition was not read, so the early years rest on Wikipedia.

Events per Games

Wikipedia tabulates the number of fencing events at each Games as follows, men's and women's events together:

NBC Olympics records that France boycotted the fencing at Stockholm 1912 and Italy refused to take part in the epee, and that at Antwerp 1920 Nedo Nadi of Italy won five of the six events. Those come from a single broadcaster's page and are unconfirmed.

The team rotation, 2004 to 2016

From 1996 to 2016 there were ten events, so not every team event could be held. Reading Wikipedia's table, the team events left out were:

• Athens 2004: women's team foil (women's team sabre had not yet been introduced).
• Beijing 2008: men's team foil and women's team epee.
• London 2012: men's team epee and women's team sabre.
• Rio 2016: men's team sabre and women's team foil.

This is inferred from Wikipedia's table and was not checked against an FIE or IOC document. On the same reading, Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, was the first Games with all twelve events: individual and team foil, epee and sabre for men and for women.

Paris 2024 and LA28

Wikipedia records Paris 2024 fencing at the Grand Palais from 27 July to 4 August 2024, with twelve events and 212 fencers from 52 nations. A search summary of FIE material gave 53 national Olympic committees; the FIE page itself could not be read, so the number of nations is given both ways.

The FIE's Organisation Rules (August 2026, article o.43) say the Olympic programme currently has twelve events and that any change in that number needs the FIE Congress's approval. The FIE Congress approved the qualification system for LA28 on 22 November 2025, and the version of 12 May 2026 keeps twelve events, six men's and six women's, with 212 places in all. For Brisbane 2032, AP reported on 27 May 2026 that the IOC had not yet confirmed the sports list, and no source found confirms fencing's place or events there. The LA28 competition itself is covered on LA28.

The record holders

Olympedia names Italy, France and Hungary as the dominant Olympic fencing nations, with Italy first on the all-time medal table. It records Edoardo Mangiarotti of Italy as holding the most fencing medals (13), Aladar Gerevich of Hungary the most gold medals (7), and Valentina Vezzali of Italy the most medals won by a woman (9).

Fencing has also been on the Summer Youth Olympic Games programme since Singapore 2010, according to Olympedia. When each weapon was first scored electrically at the Olympics is on electric scoring, and the Paralympic story is on wheelchair fencing history.