Background
This was the 27th appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1908 (when there was a foil display only rather than a medal event). Five of the eight quarterfinalists from 2012 returned: gold medalist Lei Sheng of China, silver medalist Alaaeldin Abouelkassem of Egypt, fifth-place finisher Andrea Cassarà of Italy, seventh-place finisher Ma Jianfei of China, and eighth-place finisher Aleksey Cheremisinov of Russia. 2008 silver medalist, 2012 top-16 finisher, and reigning world champion Yuki Ota of Japan also returned. Cheremisinov had been world champion in 2014, while American Miles Chamley-Watson had taken the title in 2013. The top-ranked fencer going into the Games was another American, Alexander Massialas. [2]
The Czech Republic made its debut in the men's foil. France and the United States each made their 25th appearance, tied for most of any nation; France had missed only the 1904 (with fencers not traveling to St. Louis) and the 1912 (boycotted due to a dispute over rules) foil competitions, while the United States had missed the inaugural 1896 competition and boycotted the 1980 Games altogether.
Qualification
Nations were limited to three fencers each from 1928 to 2004. However, the 2008 Games introduced a rotation of men's team fencing events with one weapon left off each Games; the individual event without a corresponding team event had the number of fencers per nation reduced to two. Men's foil was the first event this applied to, so each nation could enter a maximum of two fencers in the event in 2008. The team foil was back in 2016 (sabre the missing weapon for men), so the limit was three for 2016.
There were 35 dedicated quota spots for men's foil. The first 24 spots went to the 3 members of each of the 8 qualified teams in the team foil event. Next, 7 more men were selected from the world rankings based on continents: 2 from Europe, 2 from the Americas, 2 from Asia/Oceania, and 1 from Africa. Finally, 4 spots were allocated by continental qualifying events: 1 from Europe, 1 from the Americas, 1 from Asia/Oceania, and 1 from Africa.
Additionally, there were 8 host/invitational spots that could be spread throughout the various fencing events. Brazil had already qualified a men's foil team (with the corresponding three places in individual foil), so used no spots in the individual men's foil.
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