A sport that requires patience and precision, fencing is also about passion.

After long physical and mental battles filled with parries and ripostes, fencers often drop to their knees in joy to celebrate a hard-fought win.

Fencing has been part of the Olympic Games since its inception. In its early days, tempers would sometimes boil over.

After his team was disqualified from the Paris 1924 Olympic Games, Italian fencer Oreste Puliti challenged a Hungarian judge to a duel. The judge accepted and months after the competition, the pair squared off in a battle that left them both bloodied.

Fortunately, in the modern era calmer heads prevail, but the sport can still produce some of the Games’ most heated battles.

Format and rules

The modern format sees fencers face off in individual and team competitions using one of three weapons that come with their own set of rules:

Foil Using a 110cm foil that weighs less than 500g, fencers aim to score points by hitting their opponent's’ torso with the tip of their foils. Fencers who initiate an attack are given right of way.

Épée Like the foil, competitors earn points by making contact with the tip of their weapon, which is 110cm long and weighs less than 770g. Unlike the foil, épée fencers can score a hit on any part of their opponent's body and attackers do not have the right of way.

Sabre Fencers can make contact with the tip of the blade or the cutting edge and can target their opponent's torso including the head and arms. As in the foil, attackers are given right of way.

In the foil and épée, bouts in the individual categories consist of three periods that last three minutes each with a one-minute break between periods. The first fencer to score 15 hits is the winner. If neither fencer scores 15 hits, the one with the most hits after three periods is the winner. If the score is tied after three periods, another minute is added with the win going to the first fencer to score a hit.

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Team events consist of nine bouts that last three minutes or until one team’s score has reached the next multiple of five hits. The first team to score 45 points is the winner. If both teams fail to score 45 points, the team with the most points after nine bouts is declared the winner.

Athletes to Watch

Alexander Massialas was the USA’s youngest male competitor at the London 2012 Games. Now 22, he is the world's no.1 foil fencer and hopes to become the first USA fencer in his category to win Olympic gold.

He comes from a family of fencers. His father Greg competed for the USA  in multiple Olympic Games and currently coaches the USA foil team. His sister Sabrina is also a competitive foil fencer.

Currently ranked the top épée fencer in the world, Xu Anqi of China hopes to earn a second gold medal after being part of the Chinese team that won gold in the team épée event at the London Games.

Geza Imre, the world’s no.3 épée fighter, won his category at the 2015 FIE world fencing championship in Moscow, making the 41-year-old Hungarian the oldest fencer to win an individual world épée title.

One of eight fencers to represent host nation Brazil, épée fencer Nathalie Moellhausen was a reserve for the Italian team at the 2012 Games but chose to represent Brazil at the Rio Games to honour the wishes of her Brazilian grandmother.

Ranked world no.8 in the women’s sabre, Ibtihaj Muhammad has been part of the USA fencing team since 2010. A devout Muslim, Muhammad will become the first Olympic athlete from the USA to compete in a hijab. Muhammad took up fencing as a teenager because her parents wanted her to take part in a sport where athletes can compete while fully covered.

Muhammad comes to the Games fresh off gold medal victories in the individual and team sabre events at the Pan American Fencing Championships in Panama.

The Rio 2016 fencing competition will take place from 6 to 14 August at Carioca Arena 3 in Barra Olympic Park.