There are no team events at the Paralympics in the weapon, so it will be up to individual athletes to secure their place in the history books.

It gets competition at the Grand Palais underway on 3 September and, like all individual wheelchair fencing events at Paris 2024, will include the exciting new repechage competition format.

Find out how to watch here.

Women’s sabre category B

At Tokyo 2020, wheelchair fencing reached gender parity in medal events with the addition of the women’s sabre.

This further opened the weapon up to a world of talented female fencers who made their mark at Tokyo 2020.

Whilst China’s Paralympic champion Shumei Tan will not feature at Paris 2024, the rest of the top three will.

This includes Ukraine’s Olena Fedota-Isaieva and Tan’s teammate Xiao Rong, the respective silver and bronze medallists.

Rong is now the reigning world champion whilst Fedota-Isaieva repeated her finish from Tokyo 2020 at the most recent World Championships.

Georgia’s Irma Khetsuriani, Italy’s Rossanna Pasquino and Cecile Demaude for hosts France are some other key faces to look out for as top ranked contenders or home favourites.

The opening day of competition will also see Venezuela debut in wheelchair fencing at the Paralympic Games as Francia Jaimez Rojas takes to the piste in sabre.

“We started as a federation, as a team in Venezuela, five years ago,” Jaimez Rojas said. “We are a small group, we don’t have everything set up, we don’t have pistes, we have few resources, few materials. So for us, it is a real victory to qualify for these Games for the first time.” 

Women’s category A

Nina Tibilashvili made history at Tokyo 2020 by winning Georgia’s first Paralympic medal in wheelchair fencing. The 27-year-old will return to try to match or improve on her performance.

Poland’s Kinga Drozdz has meanwhile been on a mission since missing the podium last time around and enters as the European and world champion.

The opening day of action will see Clemence Delavoipiere and Brianna Vide try to make an impact for France.

Men’s category B

China’s Yanke Feng is the only champion across men’s and women’s sabre to return to Paris 2024.

He will try to defend two golds in Paris – the sabre and foil.

One of Feng’s biggest nemeses in sabre is Poland’s Adrian Castro. There has been little to separate the pair since Tokyo 2020 when Castro had to settle for silver. At the 2023 World Championships, Castro had to do so again.

Look out also for China’s Jie Zhang, making his Paralympic debut in Paris as the world No.3.

Men’s category A

Great Britain’s Piers Gilliver is the current world No.1 in sabre, holding off a series of Paralympic medallists who sit below him in the rankings.

These include Ukraine’s Artem Manko, the world champion and silver medallist from Tokyo 2020.

“Preparation was really hard for us. The last two years we were struggling to get financial support to get to competitions,” Manko said. “We’ve been in France for two weeks now in a city called Sarrebourg, that’s near Strasbourg and the German border.

“The French guys were so kind to us. They invited us and they paid 80% of all the costs of (the) training camp.

“We are ready as ever. I hope that we’ll get some medals for us as a team.”

China’s Jianquan Tian completed the podium at Tokyo 2020 and reached the same result at the last World Championships. Italy’s Edoardo Giordan joined him in third place and will also line-up in Paris.

La 2028 hosts the USA are heading to Paris with a team of five, four of which are debutants. These include William Schoonover in the men’s sabre category A:

“When I start to place expectations on myself about how I’m going to finish an event, they tend not to go as well,” Schoonover said when asked about his hopes for Paris 2024. “I have done the best at these international events when I just show up and have fun, and I feel like there’s something to it with fencing, where if you’re loose and you’re in the moment, you do better.

“If you’re in your head and you’re worried about the next three touches, you’ve got to deal with the one right in front of you, you’ve got to be able to respond to those movements so quickly and to see in such speedy real-time that there is no use thinking about what just happened, or what’s about to happen. You have to just be in it, and that’s hard to do when you have expectations laid upon yourself.”

Other members of the USA team for Paris are Jataya Taylor, Noah Hanssen, Victoria Isaacson and Tokyo 2020 Paralympian Ellen Geddes.

Wheelchair fencing will take-over the iconic Grand Palais at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games from 3-7 September.

Athletes will compete in the men’s and women’s individual epee, sabre and foil category A and B and the men’s and women’s team epee and foil.

A total of 97 fencers have qualified for this edition of the Paralympic Games from 21 countries. A large number will be debutants as the sport continues its worldwide growth.

Photographs from each day of competition will be available on World Abilitysport’s Flickr.