Sabre rattling at the Paris 2024 Paralympics wheelchair fencing

The sabre doesn’t really rattle, but it does look threatening …

Sabre-rattling is an ostentatious display of military power or threat. None of that at the Paralympics – just skill and precision. The sabre events on Tuesday 3 September start the four days of wheelchair fencing at the Paris 2024 Paralympics.

There are two categories of fencers in the Paralympics: Category A (fencers who have a disability affecting at least one lower leg) and Category B (fencers who have a disability that does not allow voluntary mobility of the body’s trunk).

There are three disciplines – sabre, foil, and epée – which are the three different types of swords used. The sabre is flexible and short at 105 cm long. The foil is light, weighing 500 grams, flexible, and 110 cm long. And the epée weighing 770 grams, is rigid, and 110 cm long. They all have different shaped handles.

Each sword has a blunt tip and an electronic sensor records when it strikes the opponent’s body in the correct body zone (a hit has successfully landed) which earns one point. In individual bouts, the first fencer to get 15 hits (points) or the highest scorer when the time runs out, wins.

On the field of play there are 8 rectangle zones – 2 yellow, 2 green, 2 blue, and 2 red – where the two wheelchair fencers compete. That means that up to 8 competitions are occurring simultaneously.

INTERESTING FACT: The wheelchairs are fixed to the floor and cannot move. Fencers are strapped in and lunge and retreat using their upper body only.

INTERESTING FACT: The fencer with the shorter arm reach decides the distance between fencers.

(I am working as a volunteer in Press Operations - in the Press Tribune Team - during the Paris 2024 Paralympics in the Grand Palais venue where the wheelchair fencing takes place.) 

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Photographer: Martina Nicolls