The Oceania Fencing Confederation continued to reach out to member nations in 2021, following the conclusion of the series of Refereeing Webinars in March. A Coaching Webinar was subsequently held in April, May and June, comprising two eight-session Introductory Coaching Courses with 16 coaches from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji participating.
Competition has begun again in Australia and New Zealand on a regional and national level, but the pandemic has put a stop to international events in the Oceania Zone. Olympic Qualifiers were held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for the Asia/Oceania Zone and fencing was included in the Olympic Games.
The Games in Tokyo were a great success for fencing with the participation of a total of 42 NOCs, 212 athletes and 47 alternates.
It was also great to see the medals distributed across three Olympic zones and 13 countries. Nine countries won gold medals including four countries from Asia.
Unfortunately, no athlete from Oceania was able to qualify for Tokyo 2020. Oceania is linked to Asia for Olympic qualification and the increasing strength of Asia in the sport normally means this is a challenging task. In COVID times, this was made much more difficult due to travel and competition restrictions.