Beautiful sport, nice pictures!

Awesome photos! What a great location for fencing.

Wow, great pictures. Makes me want to try this sport

Muy buenas poses. Muy buenas fotos.

Cool～

Pic 26 isn't wheelchair foil as the caption states, but wheelchair epee.

Muy buenas fotos.

Niche theme. Still, Great Pictrues. Breathtakingvenue.

#6, wow. The most beautiful fencing picture I've ever seen.

There's nothing weird about fencing...

very nice

En garde! Thunderbirds are goooooo!!

bellissime.......e Forza Italia ;-))

LMAO @ pic 32 hahaha funny

Great pictures!

Minor quibble though. The caption under picture 26 says that it is the final of the wheelchair foil competition. Those are not foils, though, they are epees.

its a boring sport

26 is wheelchair epee, not foil.

Fantastic pictures, though. I may be biased, though.

Noble sport, splendid location !

Great pics !

** TREMENDO **

It looks like 'so elastic' :)

On #12 Peoples have so strong spirit and this is awesome

believe it or not an unknown boy born to a slave mom and her master in 1742 made this sport what it is today in france, he was 17 when he faced the 40 something italian legendary champ who heard of the boy and came to paris to fight him, though he won the hard battle some say the kid took it easy on him, he recognised the boy was the greatest fencer he ever saw
it'd be nice if that "great" country of ours named anything fencing after the great Chevalier de Saint Georges

#9 is crazy!

beautiful.....伟大的运动!!!

beautiful.....伟大的运动!!!

don't care for this sport

N'est-il point beau ce grand palais?
J'apprécie particulièrement le fait que la performance des sportifs à mobilité réduite aie la même exposition que celle des sportifs sans handicap.

See what we miss in this life! Beautiful!!!

Великолепные фото!

Fantastic pictures!

BELAS FOTOS. VIVA O DESPORTO!

Beautiful sport and a beautiful venue (especially #2, #24 and #33).

Thank BG, nice pic's...
:o)

Correction on 26: Wheelchair epee, not foil.

I've been watching the event for the last 6 days and it's been amazing.

Can someone explain the electronics we see in many of the pictures (e.g. #s 3 and 18)? Are they to make it clear when a foil or epee has touched an opponent?

Also, why the "skirts" on the wheelchairs in # 26?

Just trying to understand what I'm seeing in a sport I'm not familiar with. Wonderful photos as always!

Who did say that fencing is on its way out in our times of televised sport events?

Amazing photos (as usual)
Thanx BG :-)

These are really great. It's just not something you see everyday, and I love that!

Nice photo #12 !

Congratulations to Daria Schneider from Brookline, MA for qualifying to the U.S. Women's Sabre team and competing in Paris at the World Championships! If Boston.com has any photos of our hometown champion, please add them to this page!

Forget the fencers; I'm more impressed by the building. Not that this comes as surprise, though ...

#17 - I Will Break You. ~Drago

I miss this sport so much....brings back memories.

2#、6#、7#、11# ^_^

'Lux, Veritas, Virtue'!

Superbe!

Carol @ Comment #35
Three things to know: 1) target area by weapon, 2) parts of the weapons that can score a touch, 3) lames.

1) "Target area" is the area on the body on which a fencer can score a touch. It varies from weapon to weapon. Target area for Foil is only the torso, front or back. Target area for Sabre is anything from with waist up, front or back, including arms and head. Target area for Epee is the whole body, head to toe, front or back. As several have pointed out, the weapons in photo #26 are epee, not foil.

2) Foil and Epee blades score with the tips only, and the weapons have buttons on the end of the blades that when depressed, indicate a touch. Sabre blades can score with any length of the blade on the target area.

3) A lame (la-may) is made of a material that helps to "ground" where a tip depression or blade contact will score a touch. The lames foilists wear cover only the torso, ensuring that if the opponents tip lands anywhere other than the torso, the scoring equipment does not register a touch. Sabre lames cover the waist up, same concept as the foilists' lames: only waist-up landings register a touch. Epeeists entire bodies are target area, so no such lame is needed: just if the tips lands, the touch registers. In their case, just the fencing strip is grounded in a way that you can tell if the tip landed on the fencer's foot or the floor. Foot = touch, floor = no touch.

So with the wheelchair fencers, you need to make sure tips landing on the *chair* don't register a touch. The skirts probably act as lames for wheelchair epeeists to ensure such a thing. Body = touch, chair = no touch.

good pics

That Peter Joppich guy should play the villain in a Fencing movie.

number 12 just amazing :)

Fantastic photos!

Nice to see sports not too often covered on BP, especially in such a beautiful place! Now, this is a sport where style has not lost all ground to pure performance, and that's great!

amazing venue - still find the sport still boring

nice pics

Wow. After viewing these photos, I am a fan of fencing.

And where is World Champion's picture?

#47 Great explaination. Thanks Sara.

AMAZING photos!!!

Wow! I love fencing but I never, ever expected the Big Picture to cover the fencing championships! This is awesome. What a pleasant surprise!

As someone who knows nothing about this sport, you have been very informative!

Elegant and beautiful sport and photos. The venue's acoustics must have added to the excitement. The parabolic dome catches the faintest whisper. Excellent collect of photos!

were is novosjolov, the men's epee winner from estonia?

Beautiful, beautiful pictures!!! (Just one comment, for the caption under #20, it's not a fencing "helmet," it's a fencing "mask.")

Splendide immagini (come sempre)
poio vediamo le ragazze italiane che trionfano....
complimenti
armando d.f.

1st picture is the Final bout....on the 7th picture is not Lapkes....and on the 32nd Maureen won over Tatiana Logunova in the final and Emese in the semi-final...

I don't get what's borig about it...It's exciting stuff , especially when you there at a competition. Lots to see, great fencing, and nice folks. I'm still playing at it at 65.

Sensacional!!!!!!!!!!!

beautiful and fantastic

In one of the photo's the caption refers to a "helmet" fencers wear masks not helmets!!! and generally are kinda touchy about it.

Besides that the photographs are beautifully taken, and the use of a fish-eye was quite brilliant with a venue like that. since most venues end up being convention centers = booooooring

Love these shots? Learn to fence!! You can take up this sport at any age and LOVE it! Check out www.usfencing.org to find a club near you. There are many in the Boston area!

Nice pictures and glad to see such coverage from Paris 2010. Still, there is no single shot from the royal sports of fencing - mens individual epee competition. That's a major mistake.

体育馆是哪里，很有特色！

Unguard!!! Too Shay!!!!

HiiiiiiiiiYAH!!!

Gr8 pixies and doodles. Surely fencing is fantastisch? Ich werde gruuuuuber schon, bitte.

How stunning! This is my dream.

superb photos..!!!

Fantastic coverage of a great sport. This is professional sports photography at its best. Kudos to the photographer

great pictures, some of them are really superb!!!

magnifiques photos !! quel sport ... !!!!

RESPECT very good !

Daft Punk helmets.

I'de like that

wow.....
amazing pic...

Terrific pictures. Thank you.

pic no. 24 is too much to handle....fabulous... great work

Super, super photographs. Great sport with excellent action. Magic venue

Muito bom, dá pra sentir e ver toda a competição através das fotos: o clima, as emoções, os dias passando. Incrível!!

Magnificent pictures drawing us into the agile, light-footed but also very dramatic sport of fencing. I love the close-ups of Peter Joppich before #17 (all concentration) and after his win #19 (showing the beast within?).

Great photos...they make me want to pick up a foil again!