Fencing at the 2012 Summer Olympics

The fencing competitions at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place from July 28 to August 5 at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre. Ten events were held, including six individual events and four team events. The International Fencing Federation wanted to add two more team events, but the International Olympic Committee decided to keep the number of events at ten.

One of the most talked-about moments happened in the women’s individual épée semi-final. A mistake with the timekeeping by a volunteer helped Germany’s Britta Heidemann win against South Korea’s Shin A-lam. Even though there were two hundredths of a second left in the match, the timer could only be reset to a whole second after the error. This tiny bit of extra time allowed the German fencer to score the winning point and move on to the final.

Qualification

To decide who could compete, leaders from the official rankings as of April 2, 2012, were used. Extra spots were given out at four special tournaments in different zones.

Medal table

Fencing was usually France’s best sport for winning medals, but in these Olympics, they didn’t win any medals for the first time since 1960.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Italy	3	2	2	7
2	South Korea	2	1	3	6
3	China	2	0	1	3
4	Ukraine	1	0	1	2
5	Hungary	1	0	0	1
	Venezuela	1	0	0	1
7	Russia	0	2	1	3
8	Germany	0	1	1	2
9	Egypt	0	1	0	1
	Japan	0	1	0	1
	Norway	0	1	0	1
	Romania	0	1	0	1
13	United States	0	0	1	1
Totals (13 entries)		10	10	10	30

Events

The fencing competitions at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place from July 28 to August 5 at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre. There were ten events in total, including six individual events and four team events. The International Fencing Federation had wanted to add two more team events, but the International Olympic Committee decided to keep the number of events at ten.