Medical rules at competitions: breaks, doctors and delegates.

The FIE Technical Rules quoted here are the December 2024 edition, read from the German Fencing Federation's copy because the FIE's own December 2025 Technical Rules returned an error; article numbers may have moved in the newer edition. The Organisation Rules are the December 2025 edition, with the August 2026 edition noted where it was also read.

The medical break (Technical Rules, t.45)

• Length. For an injury or other medical reason during a bout, attested by the FIE Medical Commission delegate or, if none is present, the doctor or medical provider on duty, the referee allows a break of no more than 5 minutes. It is timed from the moment the medical official intervenes and is reserved for treatment. Only the doctor or medical provider on duty decides how much treatment time is needed (t.45.1).
• Cannot continue. If the medical official decides the fencer cannot go on, the fencer retires in an individual event or is replaced, where possible, in a team event. A medical withdrawal is recorded on an FIE Medical Withdrawal form for the FIE supervisor's report, and every medical break is noted on the score-sheet (t.45.1).
• Limits. No further break is allowed the same day unless for a different injury or medical reason; a break the medical official judges unjustified is penalised; and in team events a fencer stopped from one bout may, on the same medical advice, fence later matches that day (t.45.2 to t.45.4).

Why five minutes

The FIE Medical Commission's minutes of 30 June 2017 record approval of a change to what was then rule t.33, cutting the injury break from 10 to 5 minutes, after trials at the Cadet and Junior World Championships in Bourges (2016) and Plovdiv (2017). At Plovdiv, 16 injury breaks and two injury withdrawals were recorded. The same minutes report 21 medical breaks over eight days at the 2017 Senior World Championships in Leipzig.

Doctors and medical delegates (Organisation Rules)

• A doctor on site. Among the criteria a competition must meet to be classed or kept as a World Cup, a medical doctor must be present on the competition premises for the whole competition (o.4.9, December 2025). The August 2026 Organisation Rules list the same World Cup criteria (o.4.3 to o.4.10), including a doctor on site throughout (o.4.9) and anti-doping testing (o.4.10).
• Medical delegates. They must be members of the FIE Medical Commission, and three are appointed to each World Championships by the FIE Executive Committee (o.18). They organise the medical side of a competition, verify and oversee the medical services, supervise anti-doping control, and supervise the handling of any injury or medical reason under t.45 (o.21).
• Where there is no delegate, the competition's doctor on duty takes on the delegate's functions (o.22.3).

Kit for warming up and lessons on site

• FIE (Technical Rules, December 2024, t.20). Anyone who warms up or trains with another fencer on site at an official FIE competition, including linked training halls, must wear clothing and equipment that conform to FIE rules. Anyone giving a lesson must wear at least a fencing master's plastron, a fencing glove and a regulation mask; anyone taking one, at least a mask and glove. A breach brings a yellow card, then a black card if repeated.
• Changes since then. The FIE Rules Commission's July 2025 report favoured a Great Britain proposal that anyone taking a lesson wear at least a mask, glove, chest protector, a top covering torso and shoulders, and shorts reaching to within 10 cm of the knee. The FIE's published record of decisions of the Congress in Manama on 22 November 2025 shows t.20.2 amended: full FIE-conforming clothing, including breeches and long socks, for anyone warming up or training with another fencer on site; long trousers as well for anyone giving a lesson; and, for a fencer taking a lesson, at least a mask, a glove, a chest protector, a top covering the torso and shoulders and shorts reaching to within 10 cm of the knee. Technical Rules amendments apply from 1 January 2026 unless another date is stated. That wording was read from the document's tracked changes, not from a clean 2026 edition of the Technical Rules. British Fencing says that from 1 January 2026 FIE rules require women to wear chest protectors for lessons at FIE competitions and camps; that is British Fencing's statement, and the nearest FIE text found, the Congress amendment, words the requirement for anyone taking a lesson, not only women.
• USA Fencing (Rules for Competition, October 2026, t.20.2). Anyone giving a lesson on a competition site must wear at least a fencing master's plastron, a glove, long trousers and a regulation mask; anyone taking a lesson, at least a mask, glove and chest protector; anyone warming up with another fencer, full regulation clothing. Its Athlete Handbook 2026-2027 adds that at sanctioned tournaments, for safety and insurance reasons, fencers and coaches must wear mask and glove during drills, lessons, warm-ups, camps and clinics.

Dangerous fencing

The referee calls a halt when play is dangerous, confused or against the rules (t.23.5). The Technical Rules index lists dangerous, violent or vindictive fencing and brutality among penalised offences (articles including t.26, t.121.2, t.149.1 and t.170), and at all three weapons a fencer may not cause body contact on purpose (t.25.2).

The Medical Commission's safety work (2017 minutes)

• Masks coming off. The Commission discussed the risk of a mask falling off during a bout, describing the incidence as extremely low but the possible consequences as catastrophic. Makers were asked for proposals, and the Commission proposed an incident reporting procedure for all World Cups and a protocol for every such incident at FIE events.
• Injury data. It adopted a common injury data collection form for all World Championships, and proposed three medical delegates at Cadet, Junior and Senior World Championships and two at Veteran World Championships.
• Veterans. It recorded the view that veterans' events need medical staff able to deal with problems other than muscle and joint injuries, such as cardiac events.

Reporting incidents in Britain

British Fencing's Safety Guidelines (23rd edition, approved 25 June 2026; British Fencing lists a 24th edition, Board approved in September 2026, which was not read) require every club to have an incident reporting mechanism, and ask for accidents, injuries, serious medical incidents and near misses, including a mask falling off, to be reported to British Fencing on its online form. Concussion has its own rules, on concussion by body.