Foil, Team, Women

The women’s team foil was the first fencing event to be introduced to the Olympic Games since the Paris Games of 1924. First contested at the 1932 World Championships, there had been separate World Championships for the event in the Olympic years of 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, and 1956. The USSR were generally considered to be strong favorites despite having lost the world title at the 1959 World Championships, when Hungary had produced a shocking victory over a Soviet team that included the three fencers who swept the medals in the individual event. In Roma, the Soviets were desperately lucky to survive a quarter-final meeting with France, where they only won via the tie-break rule after winning the last five bouts in a row, but then easily defeated the Italian and Hungarian on their way to victory. Hungary placed second ahead of Italy.