The men's team sabre was one of seven
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
events on the
fencing at the 1956 Summer Olympics
At the 1956 Summer Olympics, seven fencing events were contested, six for men and one for women.
Medal summary Men's events
Women's events
Medal table
Participating nations
A total of 165 fencers (142 men and 23 women) from 23 nations comp ...
programme. It was the tenth appearance of the event. The competition was held on 3 December 1956. 43 fencers from 8 nations competed.
Competition format
The competition used a pool play format, with each team facing the other teams in the pool in a round robin. Each match consisted of 16 bouts, with 4 fencers on one team facing each of the 4 fencers on the other team. Bouts were to 5 touches. Total touches against were the tie-breaker if a match was tied 8 bouts to 8. However, only as much fencing was done as was necessary to determine advancement, so some matches never occurred and some matches were stopped before the full 16 bouts were fenced if the teams advancing from the pool could be determined.
[Official Report, p. 448.]
Rosters
;Australia
*
Leslie Fadgyas
*
Alexander Martonffy
*
Emeric Santo
*
Leslie Kovacs
*
Sandor Szoke
;France
*
Claude Gamot
*
Jacques Lefèvre
*
Bernard Morel
*
Jacques Roulot
Jacques Roulot (18 November 1933 – 15 February 2002) was a French fencer. He competed in the individual and team sabre events at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics. He also competed at the Mediterranean Games in 1955, where he won a silve ...
;Great Britain
*
Olgierd Porebski
Olgierd Porebski (6 September 1922 – June 1995) was a British fencer. He competed in the individual and team sabre events at the 1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central b ...
*
Bill Hoskyns
Henry William Furse "Bill" Hoskyns MBE (19 March 1931 – 4 August 2013) was a British fencer who appeared at six Olympic Games.,
Fencing career
Hoskyns, born in London won two silver medals in 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games. No British fence ...
*
Ralph Cooperman
Arnold Ralph Cooperman (16 November 1927 – 22 March 2009) was a British three-time Olympic foil and sabre fencer.
Personal life
Cooperman was born in Stoke Newington, England, and was Jewish.
Fencing career
He won the British junior ...
*
Allan Jay
Allan Louis Neville Jay MBE (born 30 June 1931) is a British former five-time-Olympian foil and épée fencer, and world champion.
Early life
Jay was born in London, England, and is Jewish. His father died fighting in World War II in 1943. He a ...
*
Raymond Paul
;Hungary
*
Aladár Gerevich
*
Rudolf Kárpáti
Rudolf Kárpáti (17 July 1920 – 1 February 1999) was a fencer from Hungary, who won six gold medals in sabre at four Olympic Games (1948–1960). He also won seven gold, three silver and two bronze medals at the world championships. For his a ...
*
Pál Kovács
Pál Kovács (17 July 1912 – 8 July 1995) was a Hungarian athlete, who began as a hurdler, but eventually switched to fencing.
By the time Kovács won his first fencing gold, in 1936, he had already been a member of the winning Hungarian tea ...
*
Attila Keresztes
*
Jenő Hámori
*
Dániel Magay
;Italy
*
Roberto Ferrari
*
Domenico Pace
*
Mario Ravagnan
*
Giuseppe Comini
*
Luigi Narduzzi
*
Gastone Darè
Gastone Darè (18 February 1918 – 7 June 1976) was an Italian fencer and politician. He won two silver medals in the team sabre events at the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics. He also competed at the 1955 Mediterranean Games where he won a g ...
;Poland
*
Jerzy Pawłowski
Jerzy Władysław Pawłowski (25 October 1932 – 11 January 2005) was a Polish fencer and double agent.
Life
While a major in the Polish Army, Pawłowski won the gold medal in the individual saber event at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico ...
*
Wojciech Zabłocki
Wojciech Mikołaj Zabłocki (6 December 1930 – 5 December 2020) was a Polish architect and fencer, specialist in the saber modality.
Sports career
Zabłocki participated in four Olympic Games: 1952 Helsinki, 1956 Melbourne, 1960 Rome, 196 ...
*
Marian Kuszewski
*
Ryszard Zub
Ryszard Zub (24 March 1934 – 11 January 2015) was a Polish fencing, fencer. He won a silver medal in the team sabre (fencing), sabre events at the 1956 Summer Olympics, 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics and a bronze in the same event at the 196 ...
*
Andrzej Piątkowski
*
Zygmunt Pawlas
Zygmunt Pawlas (28 October 1930 – 20 June 2001) was a Polish fencer. He won a silver medal in the team sabre
A sabre ( French: sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the l ...
;Soviet Union
*
Lev Kuznetsov
*
Yakov Rylsky
Yakov Anufrievich Rylsky (russian: Яков Ануфриевич Рыльский) (25 October 1928 – 9 December 1999) was an Olympic champion and three-time world champion Russian sabre fencer who competed for the Soviet Union. He took part i ...
*
Yevhen Cherepovsky
*
David Tyshler
David (also "Davyd") Abramovich Tyshler (russian: Давид Абрамович Тышлер; 13 June 1927 – 7 June 2014) was a Russian sabreur, part of the first generation of internationally successful Soviet fencers (Olympic bronze medalist ...
*
Leonid Bogdanov
Leonid Bogdanov (russian: Леонид Александрович Богданов, born 23 June 1927) is a Soviet Olympic fencer. He won a bronze medal in the team sabre event at the 1956 Summer Olympics
The 1956 Summer Olympics, official ...
;United States
*
Tibor Nyilas
*
George Worth
George Vitéz Worth (born György Woittitz; April 1, 1915 – January 15, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American sabre Olympic medalist fencer.
Early and personal life
Worth was born György Woittitz in Budapest, Hungary, and was Jewish. Because ...
*
Abram Cohen
Abram "Abe" Dreyer Cohen (October 25, 1924 – February 2, 2016) was an American Olympic foil, epee, and sabre fencer.Bob Wechsler''Day by Day in Jewish Sports History''/ref>Bernard Postal, Jesse Silver, Roy Silver''Encyclopedia of Jews in ...
*
Rex Dyer
*
Allan Kwartler
Allan S. Kwartler (nicknamed "Doc"; September 10, 1917 – November 11, 1998), born in New York City, was an American sabre and foil fencer. He was Pan-American sabre champion, 3-time Olympian, and twice a member of sabre teams that earned ...
*
Norman Cohn-Armitage
Results
Round 1
The top two nations in each pool advanced to the semifinal.
Pool 1
Colombia had entered, but did not appear. This left Hungary and the United States to advance without competition.
Pool 2
Poland defeated Great Britain 12–4. Italy defeated Great Britain on touches against (62–66) after each team won 8 bouts in their match. No match between Poland and Italy was necessary.
Pool 3
The Soviet Union defeated Australia 14–2. When France took a 9–4 lead over Australia to clinch the match, the competition ended as Australia was certain to be the third-place team and eliminated.
Semifinals
The top two nations in each pool advanced to the final.
Semifinal 1
France defeated the Soviet Union 9–7 and the Soviet Union defeated Italy 9–7. Italy needed to beat France by that same score, then, to avoid elimination; when France took an 8–6 lead, that became impossible and Italy was set at 3rd place in the pool.
Semifinal 2
Poland defeated the United States 10–6. Hungary defeated the United States 9–1, with the remainder of the bouts between the two not necessary. No match between Poland and Hungary was necessary.
Final
The first two pairings saw Poland defeat the Soviet Union (9–7) and Hungary beat France (12–4). Poland and Hungary each won again in the second pairings, this time Poland over France (10–6) and Hungary against the Soviet Union (9–7). With two 2–0 teams and two 0–2 teams, the third set of pairings in the round-robin were effectively a gold medal match and a bronze medal match. The Soviet Union defeated France 8–7 (touches were 53–60, so even a 5–0 win for France in the final unplayed bout would have left the Soviet team the winners) to take the bronze medal, while Hungary prevailed over Poland 9–4 for the gold.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabre team
Fencing at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Men's events at the 1956 Summer Olympics