Eli Dershwitz and a teammate on the U.S. Olympic Fencing team stood ready, their feet apart, knees bent and sabres pointed up.
Another teammate said, “Ready, fence!” and the two lunged at each other, beginning an aggressive but strategic dance, alternating between attacking and retreating. It only takes a few moments for a touch of the blade to register on the sensors on their jackets, scoring a point. And then they do it again.
In the other two fencing sports, foil and epee, you have to touch with the tip of the long, slender blade to score a point.
“In sabre, it’s a slashing weapon,” Dershwitz explained. “So, you cut with the side of the blade, and anywhere from the waist up — chest, arms, mask. It’s all valid target, so it’s a lot easier to score a point. So it’s very normal to have some welts on your back after practice.”
At this summer’s Olympics in Paris, fans of fencing are going to be rooting for Dershwitz to do something unprecedented. Only three Americans have ever won Olympic gold in fencing and none have won in men’s sabre. Dershwitz is hoping to change that.
He’s been fencing since he was nine years old, growing up in Sherborn, Massachusetts. He followed his older brother into the sport.
“We would hit each other with whatever we could from a young age,” Dershwitz said. “Like, who doesn’t want to play a sport where you can just, you know, pick up a metal sabre and kind of like whack your friends and not get in trouble for it.”
But there’s more to sabre than beating up your friends. There’s a lot of strategy involved. It’s not just about who gets the hit first. Often both fencers hit simultaneously.
“And then whoever is the aggressor, whoever is either accelerating towards the opponent first, being more aggressive with their feet, with the arm, they get the benefit of the doubt. We call it priority,” Dershwitz explained.
That interpretation can lead to some lively debates in practice.
At 28, Dershwitz is the old man at this practice in Manhattan where he’s been living while training. He went to his first Olympics in 2016, and lost in the first round. Back then, he had a very different attitude.
“My entire life just revolved around grinding and the belief system that if I was able to put my body and my mind through more pain and more hardship than my competitors, that I would have an edge up,” he said.
He’s now more focused on making sure he’s healthy, Dershwitz said.
“I think I still pride myself on being a very hard worker and very disciplined,” he said. “But my goal is no longer to maximize pain and maximize misery in training.”
After that first Olympic disappointment, Dershwitz returned to Harvard where he dominated at the collegiate level. He represented the U.S. at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, but once again he was disappointed by the result.
“I knew the second I stepped off the strap in Tokyo that I didn’t perform the way that I knew I was capable of, and I knew at that moment that I was going to do everything in my power to get back, in 2024,” he said.
As he worked toward that goal, Dershwitz did something last year that no American had ever done — he won the sabre world championship.
The U.S. Men’s Sabre Coach, Akhi Spencer-El, says that world champion title puts Dershwitz in a different category going into this Olympics.
“The difference before is he wasn’t a favorite to medal,” Spencer-El said. “Capable, yes. But now he’s going as a favorite. So, I’m interested to see how he handles that pressure. I think he’ll handle it well.”
Dershwitz said he’s trying not to think about the medal podium. In fencing, there are just too many variables.
“I can’t control if the people around me have the best day of their life,” he said. “I can’t control if the people around me or my competitors are training super hard, [or] not training super hard.”
What he can control, Dershwitz said, is his own preparation. And that’s all he’s trying to focus on as he gets ready for Paris.
The fencing events are scheduled to start July 27.
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