2028 U.S. Summer Olympics Preview, Fencing Will Be a Thrilling Sport to Watch

Fencing, a historically niche sport, has gained worldwide attention and traction with athletes and fans.

Fencing is a dynamic combat sport requiring lightning-fast sword movements via agile athletes, sudden deceptions, and quick-attacks exploiting an opponent’s mistake. Fencing is best described as a tactical match of physical high speed chess. In recent years, a major funding and promotional boost in the U.S. has brought this once reputedly elitist sport to the masses, with efforts like the Fencing the Gap initiative expanding access for previously underrepresented communities.

Looking ahead to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, U.S. Fencers who made breakthroughs at the 2024 Paris Olympics will seek to build on their momentum and expand their medal count.

At the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, U.S. athlete Lee Kiefer became the first American fencer to win multiple Olympic gold medals , and individual silver medalist Lauren Scruggs closed out the team competition for the U.S. to secure America’s first team fencing gold in women’s foil. Now, with preparations for the first U.S.-hosted Summer Olympics in three decades underway, the American team is looking to ride the crest of its recent success and growing popularity at Los Angeles 2028. The history-setting performance at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris has created momentum and attracted new fans, including expanded interest when L auren Scruggs became the first Black American woman to win an individual medal in fencing in the women’s foil final. “Fencing is largely, certainly has been, a non-Black sport so I hope to inspire young Black girls to get into fencing so that they can have a place in the sport,” Scruggs said after her 2024 win . Another U.S. female athlete, Lee Kiefer, made history at the Paris Games by becoming the first American fencer to win three Olympic gold medals. Kiefer achieved her breakout success after going up against traditionally dominant European competitors.

“My first gold [at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics], I was not expecting myself to be able to compete like that with the Russians and the Italians. So it’s a pleasant surprise,” Kiefer said after her 2024 victory in Paris.

Fencing has steadily gained ground not only in the U.S. but around the world, reflected in the rise of young international stars like Egypt’s Ziad El Sissy and Japan’s Koki Kano. This has largely come about thanks to increased promotional efforts at the national levels, driven by the “universalization” strategy of the International Fencing Federation (FIE), the sport’s global governing body.

The globalization of fencing marks a major shift from its traditional role as an elite European sport. While it has been a fixture of the Olympics since their modern revival in 1896, the establishment of the FIE by a group of European powers in 1913 and the subsequent dominance of European players gave fencing an aura of Old-World exclusivity for many years after.

In recent decades, the FIE has led a drive to remove barriers to the sport on a global scale. It has done so through training and financial support programs launched during the presidency of Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who first took the helm of the Federation in 2008 and has been re-elected as president four times since.