2024-07-29 17:35:02
PARIS — Two American women squared up for a sword fight in the palace at dusk. Both emerged with Olympic medals.
This, the Grand Palais in the center of the French capital, was the stage for the women’s foil fencing matchup between Lee Kiefer, 30, and Lauren Scruggs, 21, the first all-American fencing final since Beijing 2008.
In the event, Kiefer — the defending champion and pre-tournament favorite — won 15-6 to retain the gold medal.
“There’s a million different obstacles that happened to make it to this point,” she told reporters afterward. “So getting through all these things that you can’t even predict is just freaking cool and fun.”
Scruggs’ silver makes her the first Black American woman to win an individual fencing medal and the second out LGBTQ athlete to get on the podium at these Games.
“In certain communities, fencing is just not a sport you do,” she told NBC News after her bout. “So I would say to those people, who are in those communities and who are interested in fencing: Do what you want to do … and follow your passion.”
She said at a news conference that she hoped “more people who look like me feel as though they have a place in the sport.”
Asked how it would feel if young Black girls were watching her Sunday night, she responded: “It would be sick” — very much using the positive, slang version of the word.
The scene could not have been any more epic.
With the sun having only just set outside, the fencing piste lay beneath the palace nave, a 150-foot vaulted dome held up by 6,000 tons of steel.
The crowd of 6,000 watched and whooped as Kiefer and Scruggs were tracked by camera, walking together down the sweeping art nouveau staircase. Finally they emerged into the auditorium, donning their fencers’ helmets — both decorated with the American flag.
In the first few minutes, Scruggs put up a good fight and took a few points as she battled Kiefer.
But this quickly became the David and Goliath match-up that the form guide predicted. Kiefer was able to defeat Scruggs, getting 15 points, inside the first of three timed periods, each lasting 3 minutes.
Their coaches bantered from the sidelines as they watched their athletes. And when the game was over, their fencers embraced each other on the piste and swaddled themselves in American flags.
Kiefer’s gold means she joins Mariel Zagunis, who won in 2004 and 2008, as the only woman to win multiple fencing gold medals. It’s also the first time since Zagunis defeated Sada Jacobson in the saber final of Beijing 2008 that two Americans were in a fencing final.
Now a four-time Olympian, she has cemented herself as a true giant of the sport. It’s a family affair: Her husband, her two siblings and both her parents are all fencers, and her dad was the captain of Duke’s fencing team.
As if becoming an Olympic legend by age 30 wasn’t enough, she is also a doctor, having completed 2½ years of medical school.
For Scruggs, history was already made when she beat eventual bronze medalist Eleanor Harvey of Canada in a semifinal. Nine years Kiefer’s junior, she is a rising senior at Harvard University, which sent eight fencers to the Olympics this year.
Not content with merely training for an Olympics, Scruggs is also a full-time wealth management intern this summer, describing the water cooler talk with co-workers who ask questions of how her after-hours training is going.
She got into fencing following the example of her older brother, whom their mom refused to let quit the sport because the family had already bought all the equipment. He went on to fence for Columbia University.
Away from the piste, Kiefer and Scruggs have managed to take full advantage of their time in Paris. Kiefer went viral on TikTok for trading pins with Steph Curry and A’ja Wilson during the opening ceremony.
Scruggs, meanwhile, said in an interview this month that she was most excited for the Olympic gear and the sightseeing.
“I am just super excited to be here,” she told reporters. “It’s been an honor. It’s a privilege.”
Alexander Smith reported from Paris and Raquel Coronell Uribe from Washington, D.C.
