Picture by Mike Coppola/Getty Images 2024
Lee Kiefer spent the last decade living a double life of sorts, splitting her precious time between fencing and studying medicine. Unfortunately, success in both fields came with unintended consequences.
Faced with the prospect of sacrificing one career for the other, Kiefer found a compromise: put her medical studies on hold and focus on her fencing full-time.
âI was trying to figure out what direction my life was going after Tokyo,â Kiefer said in an April interview with The Winchester Sun.
âI really wanted to keep fencing because I still love it and enjoy doing it. I felt like I could keep growing my skills, my routine,â she explained. âHowever, the biggest obstacle was the UK College of Medicine. I was not sure they would let me continue, which would have been totally understandable.â
Thankfully, the university was amenable to Kieferâs proposal to put her studies on hold, giving her more time to focus on fencing ahead of the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Lee Kiefer (USA) competes against Alice Volpi (ITA) during the women's foil team bronze medal match at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Three years ago, Kieferâs life was dramatically different. She was training in her garage, balancing her time between fencing and medicine, all in hope of snagging her first Olympic medal.
Now, she enters Paris 2024 as the defending Olympic champion in the womenâs individual foil.
âWinning a medal was kind of like getting married,â Kiefer quipped during a press conference at Paris 2024. âYou're there, and there's a lot of excitement, but you only remember what happened by seeing the pictures later.â
âThere was just so much heightened emotion, and I was honestly in disbelief,â said the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, adding, âAnd to this day, I still have that feeling.â
Her victory was a work of art accentuated by touches made with surgical precision. It proved what is possible with years of practice, an analytical brain and vast competition experience.
She was first introduced to fencing by her father, Steve Kiefer.
The 30-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, vividly remembers following her father to practices and local tournaments as a child.
âMy siblings and I thought the sport was strange and interesting-appearing, so my dad started teaching us the basics in our empty dining room and taking us to a club twice a week that was 1.5 hours away from where we lived,â she told NBC Olympics.
âIt started as a family activity, which we enjoyed and dreaded based on the day, and developed into something that we were good at, gave us focus, helped us make friends, and allowed us to see new places.â
Kiefer built off her humble beginnings in extraordinary fashion, making her world championships debut at the tender age of 15 in 2009.
It took her only two more years of practicing the sport to win her first world championships medal, a bronze at the 2011 World Fencing Championships.
Kiefer has been a serious contender in every tournament sheâs entered since then, becoming the first fencer to win four consecutive Pan American Games titles, along with adding six more world championships medals to her collection.
While her success has elevated the profile of fencing in the United States of America, it hasnât been a solo effort.
Kieferâs willingness to don both swords, foils in her case, and stethoscopes shouldnât come as a surprise. The Olympic championâs family is chock full of doctors who moonlight as fencers, or perhaps fencers who moonlight as doctors.
Her father is a practicing neurosurgeon who served as captain of the Duke University fencing team during his time there. Her sister, Alexandra Kiefer, studied obstetrics and gynecology, while her brother, Axel Kiefer, is pursuing a degree in medicine. Both have fenced at the collegiate level.
âFencing and medicine is all I have ever known since I was born,â said Kiefer. âBefore my sister went to college, we all went to every single practice together. It wasn't only a lot of bonding time, but we all made each other better through constant practice.â
Thereâs also her husband, fellow US Olympian Gerek Meinhardt â a two-time bronze medalist in menâs team foil.
The pair met shortly before Kiefer's Olympic debut at London 2012, and have supported each other every step of the way.
Training together, and even studying medicine at the same university, Kiefer and Meinhardt have become a fencing power couple.
Theyâve certainly helped each other grow as fencers, if not people.
âBecause of him, I think I'm more of a dynamic fencer and try to be creative... tricky. And I have taught him how to be scrappy and dirty, and I'm so proud of that,â Kiefer told olympics.com.
Now, theyâll compete in their fourth Olympics together.
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