A history of fencing safety rules.

The wire mask

The fencing historian Malcolm Fare, writing on an equipment maker's blog in 2019, traces masks through the written record. An encyclopedia of 1755 said masks were then used mainly by beginners; Domenico Angelo's L'Ecole des Armes (1763) shows masks of leather or thin plate; and Nicolas Demeuse wrote in 1778 that many academies still did not use masks. By the 1850s, Fare says, masks had a double spring clasp and protection for the ears and forehead. The need for a bib was first mentioned in 1888, and bibs became standard in the early 20th century.

Who invented it, and when

Masks in the FIE era

• 1600 newtons, 2004. The FIE's 2009 homologation handbook says that after FIE Information Letter 9-04 of 15 March 2004, every mask carrying the FIE emblem had to be marked "1600 Newton".
• Transparent masks. Fare says masks with a transparent visor appeared around 2000 and were later withdrawn from competition after problems with plastics some makers used. The 2009 handbook required visor masks to carry the CE mark and "EN 13567", with the visor valid for two years from manufacture. The FIE's SEMI (equipment) Commission minutes of July 2014 record agreement to propose removing the visor-mask section from the rules, and say visor masks had been taken out of use with time allowed to replace them.
• Two rear safety systems. The same 2014 minutes record masks coming off fencers during bouts and an urgent decision that only masks with two independent rear safety systems be allowed at FIE events, from 1 September 2014 in one passage and with immediate effect in a later one. Fencing Australia (8 December 2018) announced new FIE mask-fastening requirements under m.25.7 for its own circuit events from 1 January 2019, and the UIPM (18 December 2018) adopted the same two-rear-system rule from that date. These may be two stages, a 2014 urgent decision and a 2019 rule text, but no FIE decision document confirming that was found. British Fencing applied the rule at its National Championships for cadet, junior, under-23 and senior events from 1 September 2022.

Today's mask rules, including the two different rear safety systems (m.25.7) and the 1600 N bib, are on masks.

Clothing and the plastron

The IOC's chapter on fencing injury (Peter Harmer, in the IOC's Epidemiology of Injury in Olympic Sports, 2010) records that the protective plastron was introduced because of a fatal penetrating injury at the 1951 World Championships, where the fencer's jacket was found to be too thin. It cites Parfitt (1964) for this.

When the 800 N clothing rule began at FIE events is not established by an FIE document. An informal source, the rec.sport.fencing FAQ of 2002, dates an 800 N plastron at FIE "A" competitions to 1 April 1995 and 1600 N bibs to the 1995-96 season; that is unconfirmed. By 2009 the FIE's handbook described homologation of 800 N clothing and 1600 N masks for first-class FIE competitions, tested to EN 13567 level 2. The FIE Material Rules of August 2026 require jackets, breeches and an obligatory under-plastron of 800 N cloth (m.25.3.c) and a 1600 N mask bib (m.25.7.d).

A 2011 European Commission decision upholding a UK ban on one make of 350 N fencing clothing is on recalls and incidents.

Sabre gloves and sabre masks

The SEMI minutes of July 2014 record a new sabre glove design that followed several severe accidents in which unbroken sabre blades penetrated, and that the FIE Medical Commission did not support the proposed design. The current FIE sabre glove rule (m.33.1, August 2026) sets 800 N on defined areas, with 350 N at the cuff. In 2015 British Fencing reported that the FIE no longer allowed earlier versions of one maker's sabre masks, and that it knew of four accidents in the previous 18 months in which an unbroken sabre blade went through the side of these masks, with no serious injury.

Blades and maraging steel

The International Molybdenum Association's MolyReview (2/2014), a trade publication, says that in the 1980s competition injuries from failed carbon-steel blades led the FIE to look for a better blade material, and that a maraging steel was chosen and approved. The FIE's 2009 handbook records the dated steps after that: since 1990 blades must comply fully with the blade specification in Annexe A; the July 1994 Congress made SEMI approval a condition of the FIE label; and the December 2001 Congress removed any time limit on the validity of FIE-labelled blades. The handbook's 2009 blade list still included some non-maraging foil and epee blades.

The SEMI and Medical Commission minutes of July 2014 had recorded three penetrations through 800 N jackets and plastrons, and that the Medical Commission was to propose maraging sabre blades for FIE competitions. The August 2026 Material Rules (m.2.1) make maraging blades obligatory at all three weapons; the rules as they stand are on blades and maraging steel.

Deaths, as the published record gives them

The IOC chapter reports that, as of 2010, ten deaths worldwide since 1937 had been recorded from penetrating wounds in fencing, all of men. It cites press reports from 1990, 1994, 2004, 2005 and 2009 among its sources.

The count is disputed: a fencing club's blog post (2021), an operator statement citing no source, gives eight deaths in modern Olympic-style fencing. The peer-reviewed IOC chapter is the stronger source, and no official FIE register of deaths was found.

Rome, 1982 (foil)

Olympedia records that Vladimir Smirnov of the USSR, the 1980 Olympic foil champion, died after his opponent's weapon broke and a fragment pierced his mask at the 1982 World Championships in Rome. The date of his death is given two ways: 28 July 1982 by Olympedia and 29 July 1982 by Wikipedia.

What the death changed is not settled by any FIE document. A Reuters report of 2012 quotes the FIE's technical director, Ioan Pop, attributing current safety standards to it, and lists ballistic-grade uniform fabric, stronger blade steel, more rigid masks tested with a 12 kg punch, and the foil bib becoming target as changes since. Material Intelligence and Wikipedia link the death to maraging blades and stronger masks. The International Molybdenum Association dates the FIE's search for a new blade steel only to the 1980s, without naming the death. No FIE document was found that ties a dated rule change to 1982.

The IOC chapter adds that the FIE's safety changes had been based on face validity and that, as of its 2010 publication, no research had tested whether any of them worked. Injury figures, kept study by study, are on penetrating injuries and deaths.