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60 free Fencing trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This fencing trivia quiz covers the sword sport from a 1190 BC Egyptian temple wall to lightsaber bouts on ESPN. The weapons section sorts out foil, épée and sabre: which targets the whole body, which cuts with the edge, how much each may weigh, and how right of way decides a double hit. Then the rules and kit: hits to win a pool bout, a knockout bout and a team match, the 14-metre piste, the lamé and plastron, why fencers wear white, what a black card means, and the French words for the start of a bout. History questions run from the medieval Tower manuscript and the Bolognese school through Angelo's London academy, the founding of the FIE in 1913 and the arrival of electric scoring. The champions include Nedo Nadi's three-weapon sweep, Aladár Gerevich's six Olympics, Edoardo Mangiarotti's 39 medals, Valentina Vezzali, Ramón Fonst, Mariel Zagunis, Lee Kiefer and Ibtihaj Muhammad. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on fencing, its weapons, glossary, federation and individual fencers, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. BrainPickle has separate quizzes on the Olympics and on other combat sports.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What are the three weapons of modern competitive fencing?
Foil, épée and sabre
A fourth discipline appeared once at the 1904 Olympics and was never seen again.
Q 02Which fencing weapon allows hits anywhere on the body?
Épée
Because there is no off-target, épée also has no right-of-way rule and both fencers can score on a simultaneous hit.
Q 03In foil, which part of the body is the valid target?
The torso only
Arms and legs are off-target; hitting them stops the action but scores nothing.
Q 04Which weapon scores with the edge of the blade as well as the point?
Sabre
It is the only cutting weapon of the three, aimed at everything above a line drawn round the top of the hips.
Q 05What is the maximum weight of a foil?
500 grams
The sabre shares the same limit, while the heavier épée may weigh up to 775 grams.
Q 06What is the maximum weight of an épée?
775 grams
The extra heft, the stiff triangular blade and the big bell guard give it a reputation as the slowest of the three weapons.
Q 07Which rule decides who gets the point when both foil fencers hit at the same time?
Right of way
The referee awards the touch to whoever held priority, typically the fencer who started the attack; épée has no such rule.
Q 08How many hits win a direct-elimination bout at the elite level?
15
Bouts run to 15 hits or nine minutes of fencing time in three periods; pool bouts are shorter, to five hits.
Q 09How many hits win a pool bout?
5
If neither fencer gets there in three minutes, the higher score wins and ties are recorded as ties.
Q 10What total does a team need to win a team match?
45 hits
Three fencers a side rotate through nine bouts, each nominally adding five hits to the running score.
Q 11Where is the FIE, fencing's world governing body, headquartered?
Lausanne, Switzerland
It was founded in Paris in 1913 in the rooms of an automobile club, with a Belgian, Albert Feyerick, as first president.
Q 12In which year was the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime founded?
1913
The nine founding nations included Bohemia and Norway; a French-Italian row over weapon grips had led to a French boycott of the 1912 Olympic fencing.
Q 13Which country's rules were adopted for sabre at the 1913 Ghent congress, while French rules governed foil?
Hungary
Hungarian sabreurs went on to dominate the Olympic event for decades.
Q 21In which year was sabre finally converted to electric scoring?
1988
The scoring box cut judging bias and let referees credit faster actions and touches to the back and flank.
Q 22Which fencer's death at the 1982 World Championships led to Kevlar being added to uniforms?
Vladimir Smirnov
Kevlar degrades under ultraviolet light and chlorine, so newer fabrics such as Dyneema have since taken over.
Q 23What is the conductive over-jacket that lets the scoring box tell on-target from off-target hits called?
Lamé
It covers the valid target so the scoring box can tell a good hit from an off-target one; épée fencers do not need one.
Q 14Which Russian oligarch was elected FIE president in 2008?
Alisher Usmanov
He beat incumbent René Roch by 66 votes to 61 and was re-elected three more times.
Q 15Fencing has been contested at every modern Olympics; which was the first?
Athens 1896
Only athletics, cycling, swimming and gymnastics share that unbroken record.
Q 16Which fencing weapon has been contested at every single Summer Olympics without exception?
Sabre
Foil was missing in 1908 and épée was absent from the 1896 Games for reasons nobody has explained.
Q 17What was the fourth fencing discipline held at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics and never again?
Singlestick
It used a wooden stick with a basket hilt and was dropped as soon as the Games left America.
Q 18In which year was women's foil first contested at the Olympics?
1924
Women had to wait much longer for the other weapons: épée arrived in 1996 and sabre in 2000.
Q 19Women's sabre made its Olympic debut at which Games?
Sydney 2000
Épée and sabre had long been deemed unsuitable for women; women's épée arrived four years earlier in Atlanta.
Q 20Which weapon was the first to get electric scoring, in 1933?
Épée
Foil followed in 1956 and sabre not until 1988; the Laurent-Pagan box replaced side judges with a tone and a red or green light.
Q 24What is the underarm protector worn beneath a fencing jacket called?
Plastron
It has no underarm seam, so there is no weak spot lining up with the jacket seam on the sword-arm side.
Q 25Traditionally, what colour is a fencer's uniform, and what colour is an instructor's?
White for fencers, black for instructors
The white may date from when weapon tips were dipped in soot or chalk so judges could see where hits landed.
Q 26What is the fencing strip called?
The piste
It is 14 metres long and 1.5 wide, with hash marks over the last two metres to warn fencers they are running out of room.
Q 27What happens if a fencer retreats off the end of the strip with both feet?
A touch is awarded to the opponent
Leaving by the side is milder: the opponent gets to advance one metre before play resumes.
Q 28What is the full French command a referee uses to start a bout?
En garde! Prêts? Allez!
For two women, prêts becomes prêtes; 'Halte!' stops the action.
Q 29What is a riposte?
An attack made by the defender straight after a successful parry
In the two priority weapons it also seizes right of way, which is why the parry-riposte is the classic scoring sequence.
Q 30What is a feint?
A false attack meant to provoke a reaction
String one or more feints before a real attack and you have a compound attack, built to deceive the parry.