Real reason why Olympic fencers are attached to a cord

The Olympics are thoroughly underway and many people are tuning in to watch the fencing.

Speaking as an amateur fencer, few things are more thrilling than two people in beekeeping suits trying to hit each other with pointy things.

If you've ever watched a fencing match, once you get past the mystery of the rules surrounding 'right of way', you may have noticed something about the competitors.

Fencing is an amazing sport! (Elsa/Getty Images)

Typically, both fencers will have a long cable attached to their backs, which is connected to a spool at the end of the piste.

Yes, in fencing, we call the place where you fence a piste, like in skiing.

People have come up with a lot of rather wild theories about why us fencers like to attach ourselves to one end of the piste.

However, I assure you that it is actually quite an important part of how you conduct a fencing match.

One thing about fencing is that it is a very quick sport.

Hits can happen in the blink of an eye and even the most watchful judge is sometimes not sure exactly who hit first and where they hit their opponent.

Both of those things are important in determining who is actually winning the match.

Those cables you see coming out of the back are not there to stop the fencers getting too close to each other.

They're also not there to stop you from stepping off the piste - if that happens, the referee will spot it and call a halt.

I promise you, they do not impede your movement.

We have the cables there to keep score.

So, the cable plugs in behind your back, you then have another wire running up inside your jacket and down your sleeve before plugging into your sword.

When there is a hit this sends an electrical signal down the wire into a box, which switches on a light and sets off a buzzer to indicate there's been a hit.

Also, different weapons have different rules.

In foil, you can only score by hitting the torso and neck, while in sabre it's the upper body.

The plug shown here runs up the back of the jacket and down the sleeve of the arm you fence with. (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

In addition to these weapons, fencers will also wear a jacket called a lamé, which is conductive.

This means that if you have a hit on target, the light is green, and if it's off target it's red.

What about that 'right of way' I mentioned earlier?

The rules vary, but essentially, in foil and sabre, this helps a judge decide who gets the point in the event of a double hit.

As for the third weapon epée, which is also objectively the best, the entire body is the target area and there is no right of way so if there's a double hit, both people get the point.

If you hadn't guessed, I'm an epeeist, and not remotely biased... We don't do right of way because we're too cool for it - our rules boil down to 'hit them, don't get hit'.

Finally, 'en garde' just means 'get ready'. The actual starting command is more literal - 'allez', French for 'go'.

So now you know - en garde, pret, allez!