How a wheelchair fencing bout works

1. Wheelchair fencing is foil, épée and sabre, fenced by athletes seated in wheelchairs locked into a frame.
2. The distance between the fencers is set before the bout and cannot change, so the fight is all upper body.
3. Fencers must stay on the seat. At foil the target is the trunk; at épée and sabre, everything above the hips.
4. In knockout bouts the first to 15 hits wins. Fencers are grouped by class into categories.

How long

Knockout bouts are three periods of 3 minutes; pool bouts go to 5 hits or 3 minutes.