In the sport of fencing, why is there a cable attached to the back of each opponent?

I do not understand fencing, just curious specifically about the cable pulley system that pulls the competitor back.|||It is so that the scoring can be done electronically.





There is a cord that plugs into the fencer%26#039;s weapon, that goes under their jacket and out the bottom. The cord then connects to an outer jacket (for foil and sabre, not epee) and to a plug at the end of the strip. This way, if the fencer hits their opponent on target area (the part covered by the outer jacket) a colored light will go off, and if the fencer hits off target a white light will go off.





For epee the whole body is target, so the tip of the weapon has a depression tip, if it hits the opponent at a certain amount of pressure, the light will go off.|||Just a comment to your follow up - the cable doesn%26#039;t yank the fencer back. The cable is part of the %26quot;reel%26quot; that is spring loaded. The reel just keeps the cable out of the way so that the fencer doesn%26#039;t trip over it. Report Abuse
|||That is an electronic wire that senses when the opponent has scored.


There is not judgment by officials it is a connection between the epee and the scoring part of the body that completes a circuit.