Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. Most competitive fencers specialise in one discipline. The modern sport gained prominence near the end of the 19th century and is based on the traditional skill set of swordsmanship. The Italian school altered the historical European martial art of classical fencing , and the French school later refined that system.
Scoring points in a fencing competition is done by making contact with an opponent. The Olympics Games featured a fourth discipline of fencing known as singlestick , but it was dropped after that year and is not a part of modern fencing. Competitive fencing was one of the first sports to be featured in the Olympics and, along with athletics , cycling , swimming , and gymnastics , has been featured in every modern Olympics.
The FIE is composed of national federations, each of which is recognised by its state Olympic Committee as the sole representative of Olympic-style fencing in that country.
The FIE maintains the current rules used by major international events, including world cups, world championships and the Olympic Games. University students compete internationally at the World University Games. Many universities in Ontario, Canada have fencing teams that participate in an annual inter-university competition called the OUA Finals. National fencing organisations have set up programmes to encourage more students to fence.
The UK hosts two national competitions in which schools compete against each other directly: the Public Schools Fencing Championship, a competition only open to Independent Schools, [7] and the Scottish Secondary Schools Championships, open to all secondary schools in Scotland. It contains both teams and individual events and is highly anticipated.
