For the trivia buff in all of us - some little known fencing facts:

• “Fence” derived from the Middle English fense, c. 1330, ultimately deriving from the Latin defendere "ward off, protect," from de- "from, away" + fendere "to strike, push".
  
• First used in writing as a verb in reference to swordsmanship by William Shakespeare, in The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1598: "Alas sir, I cannot fence."
  
• Fencing is one of only four sports to be included in every modern Olympic Games, since the first in 1896. Fencing was also a sport in the original Olympic Games in ancient Greece.
  
• Baron Pierre de Cuobertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, was a fencer.
  
• The tip of the fencing weapon is the second fastest moving object in sport; the first is the marksman’s bullet.
  
• Fencing is conducted on a 14m x 2m “strip” or “piste” to replicate combat in confined quarters such as a castle hallway.
  
• The end of the fencing strip represents the line drawn in the earth by duelists’ seconds: to retreat behind this line during the duel indicated cowardice and loss of honour.
  
• The 750 gram weight test used to ensure a touch is scored with sufficient force is based on the amount of tension required to break the skin.  In a duel, honour was done when blood was first drawn – even if from a minor wound such as a blister.
  
• The target area in saber, originally a cavalry weapon, is from the waist up because it is contrary to the rules of chivalry to injure an opponent’s horse.
  
• There was originally no time limit on a fencing bout, until a Masters Championship bout in New York in the 1930s lasted for seven hours. Thereafter, bouts were limited to 30 minutes. Today, the time-limit has been reduced to just 3 minutes for 5-touch bouts and 9 minutes for 15 touches.
  
• Fencers wear white uniforms because before the advent of electronic scoring, touches were recorded on the white surface with a wad of ink-soaked cotton on the tips of the weapons.
  
• The first electric scoring machine for fencing was invented in 1936 by Alfred Skrobisch, an engineering student at Columbia University and future US Olympian.