Behind every Olympian lies a unique story. 30-year-old American fencer and medical student Lee Kiefer made a remarkable splash at the Paris Olympics, bravely winning a gold medal.
Kiefer’s parents are doctors, her grandmother and siblings are also in the medical field. And she herself is studying medicine. However, in her spare time, she excels as a fencer. She started learning fencing at the age of 5.
During the Paris Olympics, Kiefer became one of the most watched athletes in the United States. She first clinched the gold medal in the women’s individual fencing competition on July 28, then led the U.S. women’s fencing team to a historic team gold medal on the evening of August 1. On the podium that night, she cried tears of joy, singing the American national anthem loudly.
“We did this together,” Kiefer said after defeating the Italian team in a tense team fencing gold medal match on August 1.
Three years ago, at the Tokyo Olympics, Kiefer won a gold medal in fencing, marking the first medal for the United States in that event. She became the first American fencer to win three Olympic gold medals and the first American woman to win two fencing gold medals in a single Olympics.
According to The Wall Street Journal, before becoming an Olympic champion, Lee’s plan was to have a stethoscope around her neck, not a pile of medals. After completing two years of medical school at the University of Kentucky, she took a break from studying in 2021 to continue her fencing career. She plans to return to campus next year.
All this means that Kiefer has to decide when to trade her sword for a scalpel. However, she won’t be the first Olympian to set aside fencing to heal the sick and injured. In fact, many American fencers have become doctors after their athletic careers, some of them being her family members. The difference is that Kiefer is still one of the world’s best fencers, and her fencing skills have improved since she entered medical school.
Almost everyone around Kiefer is either a doctor or a fencer, often both. Her father, Steve Kiefer, is a neurosurgeon and a former captain of the Duke University fencing team.
Her mother is a psychiatrist. Her sister Alex is an obstetrician-gynecologist, and her brother Axel is a resident psychiatrist. Notably, both sister and brother have competed in fencing. Therefore, Kiefer doesn’t have to look elsewhere for training partners; her family meets that demand.
Coincidentally, Kiefer’s husband, American Olympic fencer Gerek Meinhardt, is also a medical student.