Wheelchair Fencing

By Kim Baker

Atlanta, Georgia: the vibrant sound of steel meeting steel. Fencers juxtaposing quick motions with slow deliberate moves. Looking, assessing each other’s capabilities.

That’s a picture of the first and only U.S. wheelchair fencing team preparing for its first competition in the 1996 Paralympic Games.

Atlanta’s Shepherd Center formed this unique team in 1994, giving the U.S. its first entry into wheelchair fencing competition. The team offered a fencing clinic on Saturday, March 5, and a tournament to test newly learned skills on Sunday, March 6. Besides those on the Georgia-based team, participants interested in forming their own competitive teams were on hand from Kentucky, New York and Texas.

Wheelchair fencing was virtually non-existent in the United States one year ago. The sport itself, however, has been around since 1948, when it originated at Stoke-Mandeville Hospital in England. It remains very popular in Europe.

The catalyst for introducing wheelchair fencing to the U.S. was the Atlanta Paralympic Organizing Committee (APOC), which wanted to make sure a domestic team was capable of competing in the 1996 international games. In 1993, APOC contacted Bill Murphy, then-chairman of the U.S. Fencing Association’s Georgia Chapter, about starting a fencing team at Shepherd Center. Murphy contacted Stacy Green, coordinator of Shepherd’s ProMotion fitness center, to recruit team participants.

"We saw a competitive void," says Murphy. "Our athletes have already become incredibly capable fencers. In fact, we’ve been invited to the 1995 European Wheelchair Fencing Championships in Blackpool, England."

Green hopes that the clinic will encourage people to become involved and build awareness. "Most importantly, we want to build the best U.S. team for international competition," she says.

Able-bodied fencing and wheelchair fencing differ in only one way: Wheelchair fencing forces competitors to focus more on complex blade movements than on manipulating distance between competitors. Some of Shepherd’s team members have even bouted with able-bodied fencers from clubs across the southeast to demonstrate the adaptability of the sport.

Wheelchair fencers are officially classified based on the person’s level of disability. On Shepherd’s team, competitors are separated into categories according to the mobility of their fencing arm. Fencers with unaffected fencing arms hold their weapons and fence just as an able-bodied fencer does. Those with less arm/hand mobility usually require the sword to be secured using a bandage.

For more information about wheelchair fencing, contact Stacy Green, ProMotion fitness center coordinator, Shepherd Center, (404) 350-7787.