The Olympic and Paralympic programme: twelve events, sixteen events.

The Olympic programme today

The FIE's Organisation Rules (August 2026, o.43) say the Olympic fencing programme "currently comprises twelve events", and that any change in the number needs the FIE Congress's approval. The twelve are men's and women's individual and team foil, epee and sabre. The Olympic competition formula is set by the FIE Executive Committee with IOC approval (o.95 and o.104). Olympedia says fencing has been held at every modern Summer Games since Athens 1896, and on the Youth Olympic Games programme since Singapore 2010.

How the programme grew, weapon by weapon

The first Olympic appearance of each event, as recorded:

Olympedia notes that women fenced only foil at the Olympics from 1924 until 1996, and that at 1896 and 1900 fencing was the only sport open to professionals, the fencing masters. Wikipedia's table counts 8 events from 1960 to 1992, 10 from 1996 to 2016, and 12 at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. On that table, Tokyo 2020 was the first Games with all twelve. Read from the same table, two team events appear to have been left out at each Games from 2004 to 2016 so that 10 were held; that reading has not been checked against an FIE or IOC document.

Olympedia records Italy first on the all-time Olympic fencing medal table, Edoardo Mangiarotti (Italy) with the most medals (13), Aladar Gerevich (Hungary) with the most golds (7), and Valentina Vezzali (Italy) with the most medals by a woman (9).

Paris 2024

Wikipedia records Olympic fencing at Paris 2024 at the Grand Palais from 27 July to 4 August 2024, with 12 events and 212 fencers. It gives 52 nations; a search-result extract of FIE material gave 53 national Olympic committees, but the FIE page itself could not be read, so the count is given both ways. Japan topped the fencing medal table, according to Wikipedia, with a search-result extract of FIE material agreeing.

LA28

The FIE Congress approved the qualification system for LA28 on 22 November 2025. The version of 12 May 2026, the one read for this page, sets:

• Events: 12, six men's and six women's, individual and team at foil, epee and sabre.
• Places: 204 qualification places (102 men, 102 women), plus 6 host-country and 2 universality places, 212 in total.
• Per nation: at most 9 athletes per gender, and one team of three per team event.
• Individual fields: between 34 and 37 fencers per individual event: 10 qualified individually plus the 24 members of the eight qualified teams, with host and universality places varying the total, never above 37.
• Team qualification: 48 teams, 8 per event, from the FIE Official Senior Team Ranking of 1 April 2028 (covering 1 April 2027 to 1 April 2028): the top four teams per weapon, then the best-ranked team from each of four FIE zones (Africa, the Americas, Asia-Oceania and Europe) among teams ranked 5th to 24th.
• Eligibility: the Olympic Charter, the IOC Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women's) Category, the World Anti-Doping Code and the FIE's minimum age in o.29.1.

Brisbane 2032: not yet confirmed

As of 27 May 2026, AP reported, the IOC had not confirmed the Brisbane 2032 sports list. IOC President Kirsty Coventry was reported as saying the list would be shorter than LA28's 36 sports, that it could be confirmed in December, and that the detailed medal-event programme would take until 2029. No source found confirms fencing's place or event count for Brisbane 2032.

The Paralympic programme

The IPC says fencing has been on the Paralympic programme since the first Paralympic Games, Rome 1960, when three wheelchair fencing events were held: men's sabre, men's team sabre and women's foil. The IPC's 2016 history records that team events were removed for Beijing 2008 and reinstated at London 2012, and that Rio 2016 had 88 wheelchair fencers in 14 medal events. Women's sabre made its Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, completing the individual programme for men and women (IPC). Wikipedia dates women's wheelchair epee to Seoul 1988, from a search-result summary only.

Only category A and B fencers compete at the Paralympic Games; category C is not contested there (British Fencing, 2023). The categories are explained on the wheelchair fencing page.

Paris 2024 and LA28

The IPC's results archive puts China first in the Paris 2024 wheelchair fencing medal table, with 10 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze, followed by Thailand and Great Britain. For LA28 the IPC confirmed on 3 June 2025 a programme of 16 medal events: 7 male, 7 female and 2 mixed or open. Compared with Paris 2024 that is one fewer male event, one fewer female event and two more mixed events. The athlete quota is 96, 48 male and 48 female, unchanged from Paris 2024. The IPC gives the LA28 Paralympic Games as 15 to 27 August 2028.