European Fencing Championships

The European Fencing Championships is an annual top-level European fencing competition organized by the European Fencing Confederation.

History

The first competition bearing the name of "European Fencing Championships" was held in Paris in 1921. The International Fencing Federation (FIE) comprised only European federations at the time, with the exception of the United States. In 1936, on the 25th anniversary of the FIE and at the request of the Italian federation, the FIE congress decided to open the European Championships to all countries and granted retroactive recognition of the European Championships as World Championships.^[1]

After 1937 the FIE focused on the organisation of the World Fencing Championships. Demand for European Championships appeared at the 1979 congress, but it was rejected on the ground that they would either belittle the World Championships or offer a poor fencing level. The question was put forth again the following year by the Yugoslav federation, with the support of the Italian federation, which offered to organize the first competition. The congress agreed to authorize such championships, on the condition that they would be held only when the World Championships were organized in a non-European country. The first edition took place in Foggia, Italy on 11 and 12 November 1981. They proved to cause no interference with the 1981 World Championships and the restriction was lifted.^[2]

Formula

Contrary to the World Championships and the World Cup, no exemption is granted to Top 16 fencers: all fence a round of pools, which eliminates 20% to 30% of participants. The remaining fencers compete in a direct elimination table.

Editions

Editions of European Fencing Championships

Number	Edition	City	Country	Events
1	1981	Foggia	Italy	4
2	1982	Mödling	Austria	4
3	1983	Lisbon	Portugal	4
4	1991	Vienna	Austria	10
5	1992	Lisbon	Portugal	5
6	1993	Linz	Austria	5
7	1994	Kraków	Poland	5
8	1995	Keszthely	Hungary	5
9	1996	Limoges	France	5
10	1997	Gdańsk	Poland	5
11	1998	Plovdiv	Bulgaria	10
12	1999	Bolzano	Italy	11
13	2000	Funchal	Portugal	12
14	2001	Koblenz	Germany	12
15	2002	Moscow	Russia	12
16	2003	Bourges	France	12
17	2004	Copenhagen	Denmark	12
18	2005	Zalaegerszeg	Hungary	12
19	2006	İzmir	Turkey	12
20	2007	Ghent	Belgium	12
21	2008	Kiev	Ukraine	12
22	2009	Plovdiv	Bulgaria	12
23	2010	Leipzig	Germany	12
24	2011	Sheffield	United Kingdom	12
25	2012	Legnano	Italy	12
26	2013	Zagreb	Croatia	12
27	2014	Strasbourg	France	12
28	2015	Montreux	Switzerland	12
29	2016	Toruń	Poland	12
30	2017	Tbilissi	Georgia	12
31	2018	Novi Sad	Serbia	12
32	2019	Düsseldorf	Germany	12
33	2020	Minsk	Belarus	12

Medal table

as of Novi Sad 2018.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia (RUS)	72	63	66	201
2	Italy (ITA)	67	46	75	188
3	France (FRA)	33	38	56	127
4	Germany (GER)	33	30	54	117
5	Hungary (HUN)	32	32	48	112
6	Romania (ROU)	16	16	26	58
7	Poland (POL)	15	24	40	79
8	Ukraine (UKR)	12	16	30	58
9	Switzerland (SUI)	7	5	9	21
10	Estonia (EST)	3	9	9	21
11	Austria (AUT)	3	5	10	18
12	Belarus (BLR)	2	2	5	9
13	Spain (ESP)	2	2	4	8
14	Great Britain (GBR)	1	3	8	12
15	Portugal (POR)	1	1	2	4
16	Azerbaijan (AZE)	1	0	3	4
17	Georgia (GEO)	1	0	2	3
18	Greece (GRE)	0	3	2	5
19	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	2	1	3
20	Belgium (BEL)	0	2	0	2
21	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	5	6
22	Netherlands (NED)	0	1	1	2
23	Czech Republic (CZE)	0	0	2	2
	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	0	0	2	2
25	Israel (ISR)	0	0	1	1
Totals (25 nations)		301	301	461	1063

See also

• Fencing at the Summer Olympics
• World Fencing Championships
• other zone championships: African Fencing Championships, Asian Fencing Championships, Pan American Fencing Championships

References

• Ottogalli, Cécile; Six, Gérard; Terret, Thierry (2013). L'Histoire de l'escrime. 1913–2013, un siècle de Fédération internationale d'escrime. Biarritz: Atlantica. ISBN 978-2-7588-0485-7. FIE100.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to European Fencing Championships.

• European Fencing Confederation (EFC), official site