Three types of swords are used in fencing - foil, epee and the sabre. Foil - is a flexible, rectangular blade with a blunt point. Touches must be made with the point on the trunk of the body, between collar and hipbones. Epee - a rigid, triangular blade with a blade that is covered by a cone with barbed points. Touches may be made on nay part of the body. Sabre - is a flexible, triangular blade with a blunt point. Both points and cutting edges, can be used to score touches, must be made o the body, above the waist, including the head and arms.

In all events a wire is attached to the sword. The wire runs through the fencers outfit to a scoring box. When contact is made on the opponents body a light flashes on and a buzzer sounds to record a hit. Over the years, Olympic fencing tournaments have used a variety of formats incorporating both round robin pools and double elimination rounds.

The current rules state that the tournament begins with a pool competition. The majority of competitors advance to a straight elimination round. When there is 32 left, they begin a double elimination round. The fencer who loses a bout is relegated to a 2^nd chance half of the elimination round. The 4 fencers from direct elimination and 4 from the 2^nd chance round, advance to direct elimination to decide the top 8 places.

A match is won by the first fencer to score 5 touches. In the elimination round, If the score is tied at 4, fencers continue to 6. The first fencer to reach 5 twice wins the match. If neither makes 5 hits within the time limit, the score is moved to 5-5 and the first fencer to score a hit wins.

Each team has 3 members. The first two (one from each team) fence for 4 minutes until one scores 5 hits. The next pair takes over for 4 minutes or until one team reaches 10 points. It continues until one team reaches 45 points or until the end of regulation time. If the teams are tied at the end of time, an additional minute of fencing is allowed. The first team to score a touch wins. Before the final minute, the referee flips a coin to determine the winner should no touch be made in the additional minute.

Fencing was introduced to the Olympics in 1896. It will be held in Exhibition Halls 4 and 5 at Darling Harbour.

Fencing:Top 5 Countries

	Male			Female
Country	G	S	B	G	S	B	Total
France	34	31	27	2	1	2	97
Italy	30	32	19	4	2	3	90
Hungary	27	13	19	5	6	5	75
Soviet Union	14	14	15	5	3	3	54
United States	2	6	11	-	-	-	19