There are two kinds of summer camp. There is the sort involving laminated name tags, communal cabins and someone called Darren shouting about canoeing. And then there is Forte Village.

Here, in the Sardinian sunshine, young athletes are more likely to be found training with Olympic champions than making friendship bracelets — and post-training recovery involves the Mediterranean rather than a rather dubious plastic swimming pool.

Next year, the Fencing Academy at Forte Village returns from 2–6 August 2027, once again under the formidable eye of Italian fencing legend Valentina Vezzali, with a stellar roster of international champions and Olympians set to join her.

Because if one is going to spend a week working on one’s competitive edge, one may as well do it somewhere with a private beach.

The academy follows the success of this year’s programme, bringing together some of the world’s finest foil fencers for an unusually rare proposition: an elite sporting camp for young athletes, staged in one of Sardinia’s most celebrated luxury resorts.

It is, in other words, high-performance fencing with rather excellent room service.

Images courtesy of The Raven PR & Forte Village. 

The guest list is quite something

Vezzali needs little introduction. With six Olympic gold medals and 16 World Championship titles, she is not merely a fencing champion but one of the most decorated athletes in Olympic history.

For young fencers, the opportunity to train alongside her is rather like having David Attenborough conduct your biology lesson — except that this particular lesson comes with considerably more protective equipment.

And she will not be alone.

The academy has brought together an extraordinary international cast, including Lee Kiefer, America’s most decorated foil fencer, three-time Olympic champion and World Champion; and Gerek Meinhardt, five-time Olympian, Olympic medallist and former world No. 1.

Images courtesy of The Raven PR & Forte Village. 

Joining them are elite athletes from across the fencing world, including Japan’s Olympic team champion Kyosuke Matsuyama, Germany’s European Champion and Olympian Leonie Ebert, Polish national-team competitor and coach Aleksandra Matsuyama, and Hungarian Olympian and World Championship medallist Dániel Dósa.

Left to right: Dániel Dósa, Kyosuke Matsuyama. Images courtesy of The Raven PR & Forte Village. 

Further champions for 2027 will be announced soon, because apparently the guest list was not intimidating enough already.

Not your average children’s activity

This is not fencing for people who think a foil belongs at the bottom of the cutlery drawer.

The academy is designed specifically for young fencers already competing at an advanced level and pursuing an international competitive pathway. The programme is intensive and technical, encompassing goal-setting, drills, situational and open bouting, private lessons and a dedicated competition day.

There will be no participation trophy for turning up.

Instead, campers will spend five days learning from athletes who have competed — and won — at Olympic, World Championship, World Cup and Grand Prix level.

The ambition is straightforward: to give the next generation access to the habits, tactics and mental discipline of athletes operating at the very highest level of the sport.

Where sport meets Sardinian dolce vita

The setting is, of course, slightly unfair.

Forte Village is the sort of place where one can spend the morning working on footwork and tactical precision, and the afternoon deciding whether a second swim constitutes excessive exertion.

Images courtesy of The Raven PR & Forte Village. 

The resort’s Sport Academy Center provides four professional pistes equipped with the latest technology, giving the programme a suitably serious home. Step outside, however, and the familiar Sardinian fantasy resumes: sunshine, sea, immaculate gardens and the general sense that civilisation has been perfected somewhere between lunch and aperitivo.

It makes for an unusual combination.

One minute, you are being told by an Olympian that your technique needs work. The next, you are looking out over the Mediterranean.

Few training environments come with such agreeable surroundings.

A masterclass in the finer art of winning

The real luxury of the academy, however, is access.

Very few young fencers will have the chance to train with one Olympic champion, let alone a coaching line-up featuring multiple Olympic champions, Olympic medallists, World Champions, European Champions and national-team athletes from six countries.

There is also the less tangible education: how an elite athlete thinks.

How do you handle pressure? How do you reset after losing a touch? When do you attack, and when do you wait? How do you remain composed when a season’s worth of preparation comes down to a fraction of a second?

These are lessons that cannot quite be found in a textbook.

Or, indeed, between the pages of Debrett’s.

Images courtesy of The Raven PR & Forte Village. 

The most competitive holiday in Sardinia

For ambitious young fencers, the Forte Village academy offers something genuinely unusual: five days immersed in their sport, surrounded by athletes who have reached its highest levels, in a setting considerably more glamorous than the average training hall.

For parents, there is the comforting knowledge that their children are developing discipline, resilience, strategic thinking and competitive focus. And for everyone else, there is the rather appealing spectacle of some of the world’s greatest fencers training beneath the Sardinian sun.

The Fencing Academy returns to Forte Village from 2–6 August 2027, led by Valentina Vezzali, with further world-class champions to be announced.

So, next summer, forget the usual battle for the best sun lounger. There is a rather more serious competition taking place nearby.

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