Foil, Individual, Men

Christian d’Oriola had won Olympic silver in 1948 whilst still a teenager. Four years on and he was a four-time World Champion and was established as one of the finest fencers in the world. He struggled at the quarter-final phase and had to survive a barrage to progress but went on to compile a perfect 8-0 record in the final pool to win the Olympic title. Italian fencers claimed the other medals with soon to be crowned épée champion Edoardo Mangiarotti taking the silver and Manlio Di Rosa winning bronze. Coincidentally all three medal winners were left handed. D’Oriola would retain the title in Melbourne.

In the pools, if two or more fencers had the same number of victories and the tie had to be broken to determine which fencer(s) qualified for the next round or to determine the gold medalist in the final round, then barrage bouts were fenced to resolve the tie. In all other cases, ties were resolved by whichever fencers had the fewest number of touches received or, if there was a tie in touches received, then by the greatest number of touches given. The number of touches scored in the barrage bouts is not known.