The fencing events were held at several sites. Most of the matches were held outdoors in an open courtyard inside the Zappeion. (In 1896 they had been conducted indoors at the Zappeion.) There were some complaints from the athletes because of the outdoor competitions and the hot Greek sun. Other matches were conducted at the Athens Lawn Tennis Club and also at the Athens Central School for Gymnastics.

Hendrik van Blijenburgh, a Dutch fencer in 1906, noted, "The fencing was perhaps the most poorly organised event of the lot. All the Greek officers were appointed judges whether they understood anything about fencing or not. The fencers stood, from morning till night, in the courtyard of the Zappeion, where the events took place, in the open air, under the burning sun. The fencing contests were going on in four or five places at once, which gave the whole thing the appearance of a circus."

There were eight fencing events at the 1906 Olympic Games, six for amateurs, and two for professionals. At the Sorbonne Congress of 1894, Coubertin and the rest of the delegates passed rules that, in fencing only, professionals would be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. But these two professional fencing events in 1906 were the last time professionals would appear on the Olympic stage until the 1980s, at least officially. The six amateur events were as follows: individual foil, individual Épée, individual sabre for one hit, individual sabre for three hits, team Épée and team sabre. The two professional events were individual events with the Épée and sabre.

There was some controversy over the fencing rules for the 1906 Olympic Games. Cook described this as follows, "In the last weeks before the start the code of fencing rules to be used in the tournament reached London, and it at once became evident that they had been drawn up by someone more conversant with the foil than with the sword. We immediately formulated our objections, printed them in a small pamphlet and sent them off to Greece, signed by every member of the team and warmly supported by the official recommendation of the British Olympic Association. The larger proportion of our wishes were eventually carried out, for we only demanded the same code of rules invariably employed in similar tournaments in Paris, London, Ostend, and elsewhere; but I was most unexpectedly faced, on arrival in Athens, by a demand from the French that we should fight with buttons only on our swords, and without the pointe d'arrêt, that slightly projecting atom of keen steel which greatly assists a judge in seeing whether a hit has been made with a point or not, and which is often the only method by which a perfectly legitimate score can rapidly and neatly be made upon the wrist, forearm or hand."

Twenty-nine competitors started in the individual Épée event. Seven first round elimination pools were used to narrow them down to 15 semi-finalists, who then fought two pools to determine the six finalists. The Frenchman, [Georges de la Falaise], was an easy victor in the final. His teammate, [Georges Dillon-Cavanagh], finished second. However, this was only after a fence-off between Dillon-Cavanagh and [Félix Vigeveno], [Hendrik van Blijenburgh], and [Emil Schön], who all tied for second place. De la Falaise was French champion at both Épée and sabre.

There were only three competitors in this event which was won by Belgium’s [Cyril Verbrugge], who defeated both of his two opponents. Italian [Carlo Gandini] won the silver medal by defeating Greek [Ioannis Raisis]. Épée for fencing masters, or teaching professionals, was only held at the Olympics in 1900 and 1906.

Early rounds (24-25 April [11-13 April]) of the team Épée event were held at the Athens Central School for Gymnastics and the Zappeion, but the final matches (those of 26 April [13 April]) took place at the Athens Lawn Tennis Club. The competition was won by a French team, but more is known about the results of the English team which finished second to them, because Theodore Andrea Cook, the captain of the British team, wrote about it extensively in his book, The Olympic Games. In the first round the British were to meet the Germans in front of the King and Queen of England who were in attendance at the games. The Germans, however, misunderstood the schedule and were asleep at the hotel at the time the match was to start. When they finally arrived at the Zappeion, they were easily defeated by the British, 9-2. In the second round the British defeated a Belgian team in a match which had to be postponed after it started and finished on the following morning. They defeated the Belgians 14-9. The French advanced to the final by fencing only one match, defeating a Greek team easily in the semi-finals in a rematch after their first competition ended in a dead heat.

The final match took place between the French and the British on the afternoon of Thursday, 26 April [13 April]. The two teams tied, 9-9. The two teams elected to proceed immediately to a fence-off and in this match, the French defeated the British 9-6. Cook discussed his decision to contest the fence-off immediately after the tie, "It is open to question whether I was right in continuing to fight the team again immediately after the dead heat; and for whatever that may have contributed to our final defeat I must take full responsibility. The fact remains that the greater experience of the French enabled them to win the majority of the deciding bouts more easily than the previous encounter had led me to imagine would be possible, and they therefore took the first prize.

"In deciding to go on at once, I had calculated that our men had only had part of a full round with the Belgians before the final, whereas the French had not only met the Greeks but had had to fight off a dead heat with them as well, and I therefore expected that we should physically outlast them when both sides retired."

The sabre competition resulted in a popular victory for the Greek fencer, [Ioannis Georgiadis]. As in the Épée, there were 29 competitors originally. Six elimination pools narrowed the field to 13 semi-finalists who fought two pools to determine the six finalists. In the finals, a three-way tie occurred for first place between Georgiadis, [Gustav Casmir], and [Federico Cesarano]. In a fence-off between the three, Georgiadis won with Casmir second and Cesarano third.

One competitor from 1906, [Hendrik van Blijenburgh], described this event as follows, )As to what happened in the sabre events, that entirely belongs into the world of humour. It did not matter who did what, or how he did it - but if someone touched his opponent, he lost! I highly respected the Greek fencers, but that the Greek jury should ‘appoint' Georgiadis as the winner, that was a bit too much.)

Belgium’s [Cyril Verbrugge] won this event against the only other competitor, [Ioannis Raisis], a Greek. Little else is known of this event. Verbrugge also won the masters Épée event, in which Raisis finished third. Sabre for fencing masters, or teaching professionals, was only held at the Olympics in 1900 and 1906.

Listed in some sources as the three-cornered sabre, it is quite clear from all 1906 sources, in various languages, that this event was a standard sabre competition with each match decided by three hits. Twenty-two competitors fenced in two elimination pools to determine the ten finalists. The winner was [Gustav Casmir] with [George van Rossem] of the Netherlands second.

The team sabre competition had four nations competing, although Hungary, which did begin a match against the Greeks, pulled out and defaulted to the Greeks before finishing. This left the Greeks to contest the final against Germany which had defeated the Netherlands easily in their first round match. Scores of the matches in the team sabre are not available in any sources, but the Germans defeated the Greeks to win the gold medal in this event.