Sabre - Modern Sport Fencing

Modern Sport Fencing

The sabre is one of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing. It is a very fast-paced weapon, with bouts characterized by quick footwork and cutting with the side of the blade. Sabre is often claimed to be modelled after the weapon that cavalry used when fighting upon horseback (the allowed target area is only from the waist up, the region a mounted man could reach on a foe on the ground), although, more reasonably, most scholars believe the sabre was modelled after the lighter Italian style duelling sabre.

Sabre is a right-of-way weapon, which means that the fencer must take certain actions to get the right to score a point. Because sabre is such a fast weapon, the window of time each fencer is allowed to get their light on during electric fencing (to score a simultaneous hit after being hit by an opponent) is very, very small. In 2005, the FIE changed the timing from 300-350 milliseconds down to approximately 120 milliseconds. What this means is that if Fencer A hits Fencer B, Fencer B has only 120 milliseconds to hit Fencer A before the scoring machine will not allow any new lights to come on.

In appearance the modern fencing sabre bears little resemblance to the traditional weapons on which it is modelled. Rather than a wide, flat, curved, single-edged blade, sports sabres have a thin, straight blade 88 cm long, with a V, Y or square cross-section.