The Federation of International Fencing (FIE) has opted to eliminate men's team foil and women's team epee from the Beijing Olympic Games, settling a dispute lasting for half a year.

The decision was announced by the FIE on Saturday after an executive conference held at Taebaek, South Korea, which means that Chinese fencing team will not compete in two of their favorite disciplines.

China's male fencers of foil, runners-up in both Sydney and Athens, had pinned their hopes of taking revenge at the Beijing Games, while the women's epee team were also desperate to rebuild their advantages on home soil.

The men's foil team of China, which had called up retired veterans Wang Haibin, Ye Chong and Dong Zhaozhi back to the national team for the 2004 Games, repeated their sorrowful tour in Sydney as the Hungarian referee Joszef Hidasi wrongly awarded Italy six points in the men's team foil final in Athens where China lost 45-42 to Italy.

Hidasi was later expelled by the FIE from the Olympics.

The decision on which events be included in the Beijing Games should have been made in October 2005, but the world fencing ruling body had to hang it up after the dispute led to a rift among European fencers.

It's not the first time that a furor arose in the FIE while discussing issues of this kind.

Four years ago, the FIE had asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to add women's individual and team sabre to the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, but it was rejected by the IOC, which said new events could only be added if others were removed.

The French federation then proposed that the events to be excluded should be decided by drawing lots. That was done, with the men's team foil and women's team sabre events being drawn, but the draw upset athletes from a number of European countries, as well as the IOC.

Finally the women's team foil, which had the lowest number of entries of the team events at the 2001 world championships, came out the one being dropped so that the number of Olympic fencing events will not change.

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2006)