The world’s top fencers are entering the closing stages of the qualification race for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. One of just five sports to feature at every modern Games, fencing will be staged at the Carioca Arena on August 6-14, when 212 athletes will compete for 10 sets of medals.

The deadline for automatic qualification is April 4, and will be followed by the zonal qualifiers. By April 17, the countries competing in team event and all fencers qualified for women’s foil and men’s sabre (individual events) will be known, other than those yet to be nominated as entrants from the host nation, Brazil. National federations have until June 6 to name their team line-ups.

Rio 2016 will feature all six of fencing’s individual disciplines: men’s and women’s épée, foil and sabre; plus four team events: men’s épée and foil, and women’s épée and sabre. The men’s team sabre and women’s team foil are rotated off the Olympic program this year.

For Rio hopefuls there are two routes to automatic qualification. The World Cup stages held over three weekends of February determined which countries qualify for the team events. The countries that qualify will each be able to send three fencers to compete in both the team and individual events in Rio.