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Fencing at the Paris 2024 Olympics

Fencing at the Paris 2024 Olympics ran from July 27 to August 4, 2024 at the Grand Palais in central Paris, with 12 medal events across foil, epee, and saber. France topped the fencing medal table with 7 medals (1 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze), while Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States each won 2 gold medals. This guide is a results-focused retrospective — the Games are over, and everything below is sourced from official Olympic records rather than live coverage, since fencing.net’s own archive predates Paris 2024.

Quick facts

  • Games dates: July 26 – August 11, 2024, in Paris, France.
  • Fencing dates: July 27 – August 4, 2024 — 9 consecutive days, the day after the Opening Ceremony.
  • Venue: the Grand Palais, a historic 1900 exhibition hall on the Champs-Élysées, renovated to host fencing and taekwondo.
  • Events: 12 medal events — individual and team, men’s and women’s, in each of foil, epee, and saber.
  • Participation: 212 fencers (106 women, 106 men) from 53 National Olympic Committees (NOCs).
  • Format: individual events ran first (July 27–29, two per day), followed by team events (July 30 – August 4, one per day).
  • Top medal-winning nations: France (7: 1-4-2), Italy and Japan (5 each), USA (4), South Korea and Hungary (3 each).
  • Most golds: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States each won 2 of the 12 golds.

Where did fencing take place at Paris 2024?

Fencing was held at the Grand Palais, a glass-and-steel exhibition hall built for the 1900 Paris Exposition on the Champs-Élysées. The building underwent a multi-year renovation (closed to the public from 2021) before reopening to host Olympic fencing and taekwondo. Its ornate architecture and central Paris location made it one of the most photographed venues of the Games. (NBC Olympics venue guide; Seattle Times)

When did Olympic fencing happen at Paris 2024?

Fencing ran for 9 consecutive days, from Saturday, July 27 through Sunday, August 4, 2024 — the day after the Opening Ceremony through roughly the midpoint of the Games (which closed August 11). The first three days carried the six individual events, two per day; the following six days each carried a single team event:

Date Event(s)
July 27 Women’s epee individual, Men’s saber individual
July 28 Women’s foil individual, Men’s epee individual
July 29 Women’s saber individual, Men’s foil individual
July 30 Women’s team epee
July 31 Men’s team saber
August 1 Women’s team foil
August 2 Men’s team epee
August 3 Women’s team saber
August 4 Men’s team foil

fencing.net covered this same event structure ahead of the Games in Fencing Schedule Announced For The 2024 Paris Olympics, published back in November 2022 — the schedule it previewed held up in practice. (Olympics.com schedule)

What events were contested in fencing at Paris 2024?

Twelve medal events, split evenly between individual and team competition, for both men and women, in each of the three weapons:

Weapon Individual Team
Foil Men’s, Women’s Men’s, Women’s
Epee Men’s, Women’s Men’s, Women’s
Saber Men’s, Women’s Men’s, Women’s

That’s the same 12-event structure fencing.net’s Tokyo 2020 coverage described, and it’s the same program planned for Los Angeles 2028.

Who won each fencing event at Paris 2024? (Full medal results)

The table below lists every medalist, cross-checked against Wikipedia’s Fencing at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Olympedia’s official results database — the two independently sourced and they agree on every result below.

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Men’s foil individual Cheung Ka Long (Hong Kong) Filippo Macchi (Italy) Nick Itkin (USA)
Men’s epee individual Koki Kano (Japan) Yannick Borel (France) Mohamed El-Sayed (Egypt)
Men’s saber individual Oh Sang-uk (South Korea) Fares Ferjani (Tunisia) Luigi Samele (Italy)
Women’s foil individual Lee Kiefer (USA) Lauren Scruggs (USA) Eleanor Harvey (Canada)
Women’s epee individual Vivian Kong (Hong Kong) Auriane Mallo-Breton (France) Eszter Muhari (Hungary)
Women’s saber individual Manon Apithy-Brunet (France) Sara Balzer (France) Olha Kharlan (Ukraine)
Men’s team foil Japan Italy France
Men’s team epee Hungary Japan Czech Republic
Men’s team saber South Korea Hungary France
Women’s team foil United States Italy Japan
Women’s team epee Italy France Poland
Women’s team saber Ukraine South Korea Japan

Which country won the most fencing medals at Paris 2024?

France won the most fencing medals overall — 7 total (1 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze) — even though no single nation dominated. Italy and Japan tied for second with 5 medals each. Thirteen NOCs won at least one fencing medal, and eight of them won at least one gold: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States each won 2 golds (the most of any nation), while France, Hungary, Italy, and Ukraine each won 1. (Full Paris 2024 fencing results, Olympics.com)

What were the standout storylines from Paris 2024 fencing?

  • Lee Kiefer (USA) repeated as women’s foil individual champion, beating teammate Lauren Scruggs 15–6 in an all-American final. It made Kiefer only the third American fencer — after Mariel Zagunis (individual saber, 2004 and 2008) — to win the same individual Olympic event twice, and with her team foil gold in Paris she became the first American fencer with three career Olympic golds. (ESPN; Olympics.com)
  • Eleanor Harvey’s women’s foil bronze made her the first Canadian fencer to win an Olympic medal.
  • Poland won its first-ever Olympic medal in women’s team epee, taking bronze.
  • Ukraine’s women’s team saber squad, anchored by veteran Olha Kharlan, won gold — a rare team title for a nation still fielding athletes amid wartime disruption to its sporting infrastructure.

(Sourced from the Wikipedia and Olympedia results pages above, plus the individually cited articles.)

How does Olympic fencing scoring work?

Each of the three weapons — foil, epee, and saber — has its own target area and rules:

  • Epee is a point weapon, which means touches are scored only with the tip of the blade. The valid target is a fencer’s entire body, and there’s no right-of-way rule — if both fencers land a touch within about 1/25 of a second of each other, both score.
  • Foil is also a point weapon, but the valid target is limited to the torso. Foil is a conventional weapon, which means that when both fencers land a hit, a referee applies a set of priority rules — “right of way” — to decide who scores.
  • Saber is an edge weapon, which means a fencer can score by hitting with any part of the blade, not just the tip. The valid target is everything above the waist (excluding the hands), and like foil, saber uses right-of-way rules.

For a full beginner-friendly walkthrough, see fencing.net’s Welcome to the Olympic Sport of Fencing guide.

Frequently asked questions

Did fencing.net cover the Paris 2024 Games live? No. fencing.net’s news archive runs through 2022, so its only Paris 2024 content is the pre-Games preview, Fencing Schedule Announced For The 2024 Paris Olympics, published in November 2022. Every result and fact on this page is sourced from official post-Games records — Wikipedia, Olympedia, Olympics.com, and contemporaneous news coverage — not from fencing.net’s own reporting.

Was wheelchair fencing part of Paris 2024? Wheelchair fencing is a Paralympic sport, not an Olympic one. It was contested at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games (August 28 – September 8, 2024), separately from the Olympic program described here.

How many fencers competed at Paris 2024? 212 fencers — 106 women and 106 men — represented 53 National Olympic Committees. (FIE)

Where can I watch Paris 2024 fencing again? NBC/Peacock streamed and re-aired Paris 2024 fencing in the US; NBC Olympics’ fencing replay page is the best starting point to check current availability.

What’s next for Olympic fencing? The next Summer Games are Los Angeles 2028, with fencing planned for the same 12-event program at the Los Angeles Convention Center. See fencing.net’s Fencing at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics guide for what’s confirmed so far.

Sources