From our Olympics correspondent in Paris – The atmosphere in Paris’s ornate Grand Palais was electric during the final night of fencing in the 2024 Olympics, with Japan cutting down both the Italian and French teams in men’s foil, condemning them to silver and bronze respectively.
Watching fencing on a screen, it can sometimes be hard to remember that you’re looking at a sword fight. The fencers edge towards one another, their tether stretching out behind them, faces hidden behind a mask as expressionless as the compound eye of an insect. Dressed in spotless white, they put you less in mind of musketeers than they do astronauts, or surgeons, their blades precise as scalpels in their hands.
