I often get asked about professional fencing. It can't be done professionally without money, and money only comes from sponsorship and television, and it's a very hard sport for the audience to understand. Tennis is simple, the ball goes either in or out. Cricket is the same, either the ball gets caught or it doesn't. These are simple concepts which don't have to be understood in real time, and so the average television viewer can grasp them. The modern presentation of the game with the computer replays helps a lot.
Fencing is too fast to fall into either category. It's often very hard to see who hit whom, even with the lights, and even harder to work out why. A well filmed fencing match will have high speed cameras at three or four angles following the movement. It's very worth watching, but very hard for me to imagine watching it with the untrained eye now.
This appears to be a foil match, I don't know where or when.
