Olympic Games Paris 2024

Paris 2024 Olympics: Lee Kiefer balances medical school and fencing, aims for gold for Team USA

By Matt Nelsen
4 min|
Fencer Lee Kiefer (USA) poses for a portrait during the 2024 Team USA Media Summit

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.

“I was trying to figure out what direction my life was going after Tokyo,” Kiefer said in an April interview with The Winchester Sun.

“I 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,” she explained. “However, the biggest obstacle was the UK College of Medicine. I was not sure they would let me continue, which would have been totally understandable.”

Thankfully, the university was amenable to Kiefer’s 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.

Picture by Elsa/Getty Images 2021

Kiefer’s life-altering victory at Tokyo 2020

Three years ago, Kiefer’s 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 women’s individual foil.

“Winning a medal was kind of like getting married,” Kiefer quipped during a press conference at Paris 2024. “You're there, and there's a lot of excitement, but you only remember what happened by seeing the pictures later.”

“There was just so much heightened emotion, and I was honestly in disbelief,” said the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, adding, “And to this day, I still have that feeling.”

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.

Kiefer before the Olympic medal

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.

“My 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,” she told NBC Olympics.

“It 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.”

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 she’s 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 hasn’t been a solo effort.

How family molded Kiefer into an Olympic fencer and med student

Kiefer’s willingness to don both swords, foils in her case, and stethoscopes shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Olympic champion’s 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.

“Fencing and medicine is all I have ever known since I was born,” said Kiefer. “Before 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.”

There’s also her husband, fellow US Olympian Gerek Meinhardt — a two-time bronze medalist in men’s 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.

They’ve certainly helped each other grow as fencers, if not people.

“Because 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,” Kiefer told olympics.com.

Now, they’ll compete in their fourth Olympics together.

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