The men's team foil was one of seven fencing events on the fencing at the 1956 Summer Olympics programme. It was the ninth appearance of the event. The competition was held 23 November 1956. 50 fencers from 9 nations competed. Competition format The competition used a pool play format, with each team facing the other teams in the pool in a round robin. Each match consisted of 16 bouts, with 4 fencers on one team facing each of the 4 fencers on the other team. Bouts were to 5 touches. Total touches against were the tie-breaker if a match was tied 8 bouts to 8. However, only as much fencing was done as was necessary to determine advancement, so some matches never occurred and some matches were stopped before the full 16 bouts were fenced if the teams advancing from the pool could be determined. Rosters Australia Ray Buckingham Brian McCowage Rod Steel David McKenzie Michael Sichel Tom Cross Belgium Jacques Debeur Ghislain Delaunois Marcel Van Der Auwera André Verhalle Colombia Pablo Uribe Emilio Echeverry Gabriel Blando Emiliano Camargo France Claude Netter Bernard Baudoux Jacques Lataste Roger Closset Christian d'Oriola René Coicaud Great Britain René Paul Bill Hoskyns Raymond Paul Allan Jay Ralph Cooperman Hungary Endre Tilli József Sákovics József Gyuricza Mihály Fülöp Lajos Somodi, Sr. József Marosi Italy Edoardo Mangiarotti Manlio Di Rosa Giancarlo Bergamini Antonio Spallino Luigi Carpaneda Vittorio Lucarelli Soviet Union Yury Rudov Iuri Osip'ovi Mark Midler Aleksandr Ovsyankin Viktor Zhdanovich Yury Ivanov United States Albie Axelrod Daniel Bukantz Hal Goldsmith Byron Krieger Nate Lubell Skip Shurtz Results Round 1 The top two nations in each pool advanced to the semifinal. Pool 1 In the first match, Belgium defeated the Soviet Union 9–7. The Soviet Union then defeated France 9–7. The third match ended when France took a 10–4 lead over Belgium, ensuring that all teams would finish 1–1 and Belgium would necessarily lose the three-way tie based on individual bouts. Pool 2 In the first match, Great Britain defeated Colombia 15–1. In the second, Italy reached 9 wins without a loss against Colombia to win the match; because this put Colombia at 0–2 and guaranteed advancement for the other two teams, the Italy–Colombia match was halted. Pool 3 In the first match, the United States defeated Australia 13–3. In the second, Hungary and Australia each won 8 bouts, but Hungary prevailed on touches against (57–65). This