Fencing is great exercise, and safer than most other sports

This is an exciting time, with the Olympics coming up, to make sure our community has accurate information about a sport (one of only four) that’s been in every Olympics since the creation of the modern Olympic Games in 1896.

How appropriate that fencing made the front page of The State last week after South Carolina hosted the Southeast Section Fencing Championships in Columbia.

However, I was a little concerned about public reaction to seeing the photo of a fencer sprawled on his back covering his face after a grueling bout, owing to his frustration with losing, juxtaposed with Eight Belles, the horse that went down after the Kentucky Derby.

Misconceptions about the safety of fencing have long inhibited some people from taking up the sport. But Peter A. Harmer, chief medical officer for the U.S. Fencing Association, published a study in the March issue of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine that should put people’s concerns to rest. His conclusion was that fencing “has a substantially lower rate of time-loss injury” than other sports.

His research found, for example, that “the rate of a time-loss injury in soccer was more than 50 times greater than for fencing, and it was 31 times greater in basketball.” Even women’s softball, with the lowest-game injury rate of the 16 sports studied, had a 12.5-fold higher rate of time-loss injury than fencing.

Dr. Harmer also found that the fencing injuries were mainly sprains, strains and ruptures rather than puncture wounds or lacerations.

As a longtime competitive fencer, coach and national referee, I would emphasize that fencers are required to wear regulation safety clothing in competition. Similarly, most fencing clubs require protective clothing during practice. Injuries can also be prevented if fencers receive good instruction in an organized and supervised setting.

Far from the historical dueling to first blood or to death, modern fencing is one of the safest sports you can play. It is a marvelous activity for the development and exercise of physical and mental prowess.

JANE R. LITTMANN, Ph.D.

Head Coach, Columbia Fencers' Club

Clinical Professor of Neuropsychiatry & Behavioral Science

University of South Carolina School of Medicine

Columbia