Throughout the summer, in a series called Hometown Hopefuls, NBC is spotlighting the stories of Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls from all fifty states, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, as they work towards the opportunity to represent their country at the Paris 2024 Games next year. We’ll learn about their paths to their sports’ biggest stage, and the towns and communities that have been formative along the way. Visit NBCSports.com/hometownhopefuls for more stories from across America as these Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls prepare for Paris in summer 2024.
When Lee Kiefer won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, she became the first American fencer to do so in individual foil – a monumental achievement for Kiefer and for the United States fencing community. It marked the culmination of a lifetime of work, from training in her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, to winning four NCAA Championships at the University of Notre Dame, to balancing her sport with medical school at the University of Kentucky.
There to celebrate with Kiefer in Tokyo was her husband, four-time Olympic fencer and college teammate, Gerek Meinhardt, and her longtime coach, Amgad Khazbak. Celebrating from afar in the United States were Kiefer’s parents, her sister, Alex, who won an individual championship at Harvard, and her brother, Axel, who was teammates with Lee at Notre Dame. Ahead of the World Fencing Championships in Milan in late July, Lee Kiefer spoke with NBC Sports about her family’s fencing prowess, her plans to return to medical school, and the road to the Paris Olympics in 2024.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity
To start, we’re really interested in the fencing club where you train in Kentucky and how an Egyptian player and coach made his way here to have this fencing club and to be coaching a gold medalist. Can you start by telling us about that story and how the Bluegrass Fencers’ Club came to be in Lexington, Kentucky?
Lee Kiefer: It starts with my dad. My dad was a walk-on in college at Duke. And when he went to medical school, had a family, he obviously gave up fencing for many, many years. And when I was about six, his life had settled a little bit. He was like, ‘OK, maybe I want some exercise and excitement back in my life.’ So he started going to local competitions – very rusty, but he still enjoyed it. And that was the first time we saw fencing. When I say ‘we,’ I mean my older sister – she was like eight at the time – and my younger brother, who was two years younger than me. We saw it, we thought it was super weird, and then [our dad] was like, ‘You guys should try fencing.’ And at that time, the closest club was about an hour and a half away. He would drive us every Tuesday after work. Eventually, that became two, three days a week. And I guess after about three years, they were like, ‘Our kids are getting good enough that maybe we should recruit a coach to where we live in Lexington.’ So at one of the national competitions, they met with my coach, my still-coach, Amgad Khazbak. He, originally from Egypt, had been working in Texas, but they were like, ‘We would love to have a coach here. We’d love to help you open up a club.’ So [my dad] and another person basically recruited him, and it kind of grew from there.
That’s awesome. What was it like from that point on having him come to coach you and then practicing alongside your siblings for your whole childhood?
Kiefer: Yeah, I would say any transition is so hard for me. Taking lessons from someone new, I’m very stubborn, and I fought with him a lot. I was about 12 years old. So just the change in technique, increase in practice – because now we’re not driving, so we have all this time to spend at the club. It was hard at first, but it was something I was doing with my siblings. We were always very close, and we were always pushing each other to get better. But it took only a short period of time where I realized how compatible my coach and I were. Stylistically, we’re both very athletic-oriented. From a young age I was, I don’t want to say a bully, but running circles around people, literally – maybe not even in a good way! [Khazbak] and I have a lot of trust with each other about making decisions, and I definitely didn’t see those things until I was older. But we meshed well.
It’s pretty amazing that you’re still working with him. You said you started when you were 12, so we’re getting close to 20 years, right? How do you manage to still be able to work together for almost two decades and for pretty much your entire career?
Kiefer: He’s definitely like a second father figure to me. It hasn’t always been smooth, but we’ve grown together. We’ve grown in our goals of having local success to national to international success, so we shared that. And so, I guess I’ve always had a place to come back at home, but he’s always been supportive, like when I went to college, to keep learning and growing. And even now, we travel a lot. So yeah, it’s changed over time, and I think that’s why it still works. There’s stability, but growth.
As you’ve watched the evolution of the Bluegrass Fencers’ Club, what type of impact have you seen on younger athletes in fencing either at your club, or in the U.S. overall in your travels?
Kiefer: My club specifically, I see a lot of kids dream big, which is really cool. When I was younger, I think I was going through the process, and I didn’t have a clear picture of what could happen if things went really well. There were a lot of good role models at other clubs, but it’s not like I saw their-day to-day or month-to-month goals and activity. I think because of where I’ve gone, I see a lot of kids spend hours and hours training, and they want to be there. They want to travel, they want to enjoy that aspect too if they have the opportunity. And then even thinking about college and everything after college, I think there are a lot of cool things they associate with fencing and construct their lives around it, which I love!
How important was it to you once you graduated from college to go back to having Lexington be that home base?
Kiefer: After college, I started medical school, and the only way that I could even contemplate doing both was being at home. Where I live now, the fencing club is a five-minute drive, my parents are a 10-minute drive, the airport is a 10-minute drive, and school is about a 15-minute drive. So everything is very close, and very efficient, and obviously a lot of people supporting me.
We’ve heard so much about your at-home setup during COVID. Do you still have that basement setup? And how much do you still use that, or are you fully back to fencing only at the club again?
Kiefer: We’re fully back to the club. It was perfectly functional while we needed it, but being in a dark basement doesn’t compare to being surrounded by training partners and friends.
Where are you with medical school? I know you had taken a break. Are you still on that hiatus from it? And what year will you be when you return?
Kiefer: Yes. When I come back, I will be a third-year student. Before I took time off, I had completed about half of my third year. But then, with the Olympics getting rescheduled, it wasn’t a very organized leave. And because I’ve been off for so long, I’ll come back and restart my third year, which I hate saying out loud; I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that was grueling to even do part of it!’
Do you know when you’ll come back?
Kiefer: Yeah, we have a few months post-Olympics (Paris), if everything goes well, like half a year to reintegrate and re-study and then start the third year. We’ve already communicated with the administration and have a plan in place.
‘We’ is you and your husband, right?
Kiefer: Yes!
So we should talk about him and how he plays a role in all this, especially as a fencer and also as a medical student. When did you meet?
Kiefer: Fencing is pretty small. We’ve known each other since around 2010 or before as friends, and then we started dating around the time of the London 2012 Olympics.
I’m sure he’s a huge support because he knows exactly what you’re going through. How do you think your career would be different if you met Gerek and he was not a fencer?
Kiefer: Oh, man, I don’t even know where to start. Well, I would say if one of us wasn’t a fencer, we both would have retired a long time ago. I think we enjoy doing this together. And I think we make each other better fencers tactically, and motivate each other through all the downs and the ups. Yeah, we would have been retired. And then we also find enjoyment, for instance, now that we’re both on a leave of absence, we’re like, ‘What do we want to do during the summer?’ We need to travel and do all of these camps, and see the world and have fun, so I think having someone to kind of bounce off makes it more fun.
Are you able to turn off fencing with each other when you need to, or are you constantly talking and strategizing?
Kiefer: That’s a really good question. I guess we don’t purposefully separate it. But at the same time, a lot can go unspoken because we understand it so well. So it’s not like we have to explain or drone on. But we have fun. Our friends are in the fencing world, a lot of our vacation is tacked on to the end of the fencing tournaments, so you can’t really separate it if you try.
And so, going back to medical school and returning after Paris, have you made a decision – will you be done fencing after Paris, or would you try to come back again for the 2028 Olympics in LA?
Kiefer: I guess life has not gone as we planned. You know, you think about starting college, and finishing college, starting med school. We have a plan in place, but I don’t like to put ‘definitely’ because I don’t like to mislead people. And I don’t like to put myself in a box because I get stressed out. But yeah, that’s our plan. We’re enjoying fencing right now, but I don’t know how we’ll feel after Paris. And I think that we will have another huge discussion and get everything ready.
Speaking of Paris, I know you collect postcards from all of your travels. Is there anything special that you do with the ones that that might be from a trip that you have especially fond memories of, like the Tokyo Olympics, for example? Do you have any way of differentiating those, and where do you keep them now?
Kiefer: I write on all my postcards, so I’ll write little notes ranging from ‘You were awesome!’ to ‘You got food poisoning and that didn’t end up how you wanted!’ So I do put little memories. Right now, they’re all taped to my bathroom wall at my parents’ house. I think one day I’ll put them in a see-through book so I can read them, but no one else can read them because I’m sure there are some embarrassing things on there!
Do you remember what you wrote on the Tokyo one?
Kiefer: I actually don’t. I don’t. They’re going to be a surprise.
That’s so fun. How did that tradition start for you?
Kiefer: I don’t know, to be honest. And they’re also postcards from a lot of my friends too, so it’s not only my travels. I think because I was gone so much, it was a way to maintain friendships and just small memories from my trip.
You’ve talked so much about your support system, which of course includes your siblings. Now that you’re all adults, and that fencing has taken you to the level of success that it has, what is your relationship with them – and with them in the world of fencing – like today?
Kiefer: I miss them, let’s be honest. My sister was the first to retire, and I grieved. She’s in Long Island with her husband and her baby, so they’re kind of far away. But we talk every week or two, and they’re always cheering for me fencing-wise. I think once in a while, like once a year, she’ll go to the local fencing club and suit up for some exercise. But my little brother who’s in town every month — I beg him to come practice with us. And I think I’ve been successful once every half year. They still got it, but may be a little bit out of shape, which is to be expected. But they still enjoy it, and I enjoy being able to share this part of my life with them.
When you look to the Paris 2024 Olympics, do you know who from your family is planning on being there in person?
Kiefer: Everyone! It’s a good thing, but also a stressful thing because we don’t know if we’ve qualified essentially until April, but to be able to have tickets and lodging, people are looking now. Discussions are happening, and it makes me excited and motivates me. But also at the same time, I’m like, ‘Talk to someone else about it! I need to make sure there’s a reason for everyone to go!’ But yeah, aunts, uncles, friends, everyone’s going be there if I qualify.
Looking ahead, I think another interesting story that I’ve learned about is Ysaora Thibus, one of your biggest international rivals. What has that been like competing against her? Do you see her as your top rival, especially looking ahead to Worlds this summer and Paris next summer?
Kiefer: I guess, if we meet each other, then that means we meet in the finals because we’re ranked number one and two in the world. For me, that’s a great thing. That’s a great result. That’s one step closer to the Olympics. ... But there are a million other obstacles, I guess, before we make it to that point in the competition.
When you’re approaching a big competition, are you thinking, ‘OK, this is how I want things to end up,’ or just thinking one thing at a time?
Kiefer: I know I have the capacity to do it. I guess my baseline belief is, I do have the skills. I’ve done it before. Sometimes that helps me get into a good headspace. The day of and the night before, I’ll have our bracket, so I’ll tentatively know who’s in my path, and I like to have an idea. I’m definitely not putting pressure on myself like, ‘I have to do this,’ because anything can happen. But I guess I wear my heart on my sleeve more than before when I was younger. It’s just a different time in my life. I know I can do it, and it’s going to be hard, but let’s freaking go for it.
Does that confidence come from winning a gold medal at the Olympics, or were you starting to feel that even before?
Kiefer: Probably before the Olympics. I suppose when I was more of an underdog, it was like, ‘I can beat anyone.’ And now that I’m old, I’m like, ‘I can beat anyone -- but anyone can beat me too!’ So it goes both ways. I’m not scared of it, but it’s just a reminder to keep grinding and don’t get comfortable.
Kiefer is competing this week at the World Fencing Championships in Milan, Italy. For more information on the tournament schedule, results, and how to watch, visit www.usafencing.org/2023worlds.