Saturday - qualification rounds
The qualification consists of four rounds of poules and a preliminary direct elimination. No fencer is eliminated until after the last round of poules. The first round of poules is only used for ranking into the second round, but in round two, three and four the poule winners will be immediately qualified for Sunday’s direct elimination. Finally, the best of the remaining fencers on the combined ranking from round two, three and four will be placed in a preliminary tableau where the winners of one direct elimination bout will be the last to qualify for Sunday’s competition.

Sunday direct elimination with repechâge
Approximatly half of the participating fencers will be qualified for the direct elmination on Sunday. The DE will have a repechâge until eight fencers are remaining, so up until the quarter finals you are allowed to lose one match without being knocked out of the competition.