Управління змаганнями та федераціями Fencing

Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. It consists of three primary disciplines: foil, épée, and sabre (also spelled saber), each with its own blade and set of rules. Most competitive fencers specialise in one of these disciplines. The modern sport gained prominence near the end of the 19th century, evolving from historical European swordsmanship. The Italian school altered the historical European martial art of classical fencing, and the French school later refined that system. Scoring points in a fencing competition is done by making contact with the opponent with one's sword.

The 1904 Olympic Games featured a fourth discipline of fencing known as singlestick, but it was dropped after that year and is not a part of modern fencing. Competitive fencing was one of the first sports to be featured in the Olympics and, along with athletics, cycling, swimming, and gymnastics, has been featured in every modern Olympics.

Fencing is governed by the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (FIE), headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. The FIE is composed of 155 national federations, each of which is recognised by its state Olympic Committee as the sole representative of Olympic-style fencing in that country.

The FIE maintains the current rules used by major international events, including world cups, world championships and the Olympic Games. The FIE handles proposals to change the rules at an annual congress.

In fencing, each bout (i.e. a match between two individuals or teams) is decided by either reaching a set number of hits or outscoring the opponent within a specified time limit, depending on the format of the competition.

Pool bouts: In pool rounds, each bout is fenced to 5 hits or a single period of 3 minutes. If neither fencer has reached 5 hits when time expires, the bout ends and the higher-scoring fencer is declared the winner. If the score is tied, a tie is recorded. At the end of each bout, the number of hits scored by both fencers is also recorded.

Direct elimination bouts: In the knockout stage, each bout continues until one fencer scores 15 hits, or until the 9-minute total fencing time (split into three 3-minute periods) expires. A 1-minute break separates each period. The clock is paused whenever the action stops, such as after a valid hit. If the score is tied at the end of the third period, a 1-minute sudden-death overtime period is fenced. The first valid hit decides the winner; if no hit is scored, the fencer with priority (determined by a draw) wins.

Each team usually fields three fencers (plus a substitute). A match consists of nine consecutive bouts, with every fencer on one team facing each fencer on the opposing team in a preset rotation. Scoring is cumulative, generally progressing in increments of up to five hits per bout, until one team reaches 45 hits or time expires. If tied at the end of the final bout, a 1-minute sudden-death period is fenced; the first valid hit wins, or if no hit is scored, the team with priority (decided by a draw) wins.

University students compete internationally at the World University Games. The United States holds two national-level university tournaments (the NCAA championship and the USACFC National Championships). The BUCS holds fencing tournaments in the United Kingdom. Many universities in Ontario, Canada have fencing teams that participate in an annual inter-university competition called the OUA Finals.

National fencing organisations have set up programmes to encourage more students to fence. Examples include the Regional Youth Circuit program in the US and the Leon Paul Youth Development series in the UK.

The UK hosts two national competitions in which schools compete against each other directly: the Public Schools Fencing Championship, a competition only open to Independent Schools, and the Scottish Secondary Schools Championships, open to all secondary schools in Scotland. It contains both teams and individual events and is highly anticipated. Schools organise matches directly against one another and school age pupils can compete individually in the British Youth Championships.

In recent years, attempts have been made to introduce fencing to a wider and younger audience, by using foam and plastic swords, which require much less protective equipment. This makes it much less expensive to provide classes, and thus easier to take fencing to a wider range of schools than traditionally has been the case. There is even a competition series in Scotland – the Plastic-and-Foam Fencing FunLeague – specifically for Primary and early Secondary school-age children using this equipment.

Fencing traces its roots to the development of swordsmanship for duels and self-defence. Described as "high-speed chess", each bout begins and ends with a salute. Good sportsmanship and honor are stressed at every level of training and competition.

The oldest surviving treatise on western fencing is the Royal Armouries Ms. I.33, also known as the Tower manuscript, written c. 1300 in present-day Germany, which discusses the usage of the arming sword together with the buckler. It was followed by a number of treatises, primarily from Germany and Italy, with the oldest surviving Italian treatise being Fior di Battaglia by Fiore dei Liberi, written c. 1400. However, because they were written for the context of a knightly duel with a primary focus on archaic weapons such as the arming sword, longsword, or poleaxe, these older treatises do not really stand in continuity with modern fencing.

From the 16th century onward, the Italian school of fencing would be dominated by the Bolognese or Dardi-School of fencing, named after its founder, Filippo Dardi, a Bolognese fencing master and Professor of Geometry at the University of Bologna. Unlike the previous traditions, the Bolognese school would primarily focus on the sidesword being either used alone or in combination with a buckler, a cape, a parrying dagger, or dual-wielded with another sideswo