Two-time gold medalist creating pride in home fencing club in Lexington

A second Olympic gold medal for Lexington’s Lee Kiefer is generating a great deal of pride in her hometown. Maybe no more so than at her fencing club home.

Just a few days after Lee Kiefer made history earning back-to-back gold in women’s foil fencing, aspirations ran high inside the Keithshire Shopping Center upstairs practice site. 18-year-old Alan Chen said the 30-year-old Kiefer mentors many.

“She’s a really nice person who includes everyone. She’ll fence with younger kids. She’ll fence with older kids. She’ll fence with everyone,” said Chen.

Chen said, prior to heading to Paris, it wouldn’t be unusual to find Kiefer at the fencers’ club four days a week. 17-year-old Antonio Wong caught the fencing bug at a summer camp. Wong places her as one of the best athletes overall in the country.

“Works very hard in practice and then she goes to tournaments and she dominates every time and she’s just like an amazing fencer,” said Wong.

Both Wong, from California, and Chen from Alabama came to Lexington to train with Kiefer’s coach Amgad Khazbak. 14-year-old Laila McDaniel of Versailes said a wrist injury led to her moving from gymnastics to fencing.

“I kind of considered in but I never actually started and then I watched a TV show like later that made me feel like ok I’m going to start this. So, guess I’d say a TV show which made me finally get up and start it,” said McDaniel.

Tuesday afternoon also found 14-year-old May Dinh at the Fencers Club facility. Dinh said she first saw Kiefer compete in the Tokyo Olympics.

“Honestly she’s really good representation for like the southeast Asian community and I’m from there. So, it was really cool to see her be such a historic fencer.”

Dinh added Kiefer’s success is also nice in representing petite fencers. Dinh noted she competed in the summer nationals last year and qualified this year, but wasn’t able to attend.

The fencers said practice participation is down some this week with a number of club members journeying to France to watch Olympic action.

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