Believe it or not, fencing is an incredibly Jewish sport. According to Tablet, Jews have won more Olympics medals in fencing than any other sport. Between 1900 and 1936 alone, Jewish fencers won 35 Olympic medals overall. 17 of them were gold medals. Today, Jews still play a huge role in the sport with Nick Itkin, Eli Dershwitz and Maia Weintraub all heading to the Paris Olympics to represent the United States and Yuval Freilich representing Israel.
However, it seems that all eyes will be on 24-year-old Nick Itkin, who is the highest ranked American men’s fencer.
Here are 18 things to know about the foil fencer.
1. Nick was born on Oct. 9, 1999 in Los Angeles to a Jewish family.
2. He’s a Libra!
3. His parents Michael (Misha) and Tatyana immigrated from Ukraine in 1992. At first, they landed in New York City, but Tatyana disliked it.
“They spent their last ticket on a flight to LA and then they figured it out from there,” Nick has said.
4. His family is extremely athletic. His dad was a fencer and is his fencing coach. (Misha opened the Los Angeles International Fencing Center in 2003 and also coached the U.S. national team at the time.)
Meanwhile, his mom Tatyana, sister Julia and grandmother were rhythmic gymnasts. (Tatyana was on the Ukrainian national gymnastics team and Julia was on the U.S. national rhythmic gymnastics team.) Tatyana is currently a rhythmic gymnastics coach and has coached the U.S. national team.
5. Nick grew up hanging out in his dad’s gym and started fencing at age 7. Please enjoy this adorable photo of him fencing as a child.
6. He’s bilingual, speaking both English and Russian!
7. Nick graduated from Palisades Charter High School in 2017 and received an athletic scholarship to attend Notre Dame for college. While at Notre Dame he won two NCAA titles in 2018 and 2019. He graduated in 2022 with a degree in political science.
8. Nick isn’t religious, but finds importance in Jewishness through his father.
“I can’t say that I’m very much involved in the Jewish religion, but my father, it’s a huge part of his identity so obviously I grew up experiencing the culture and the religion,” Itkin explained to press. “When we visited Israel [in 2022], it was one of his goals, to bring his family there. It meant a lot to him.”
9. Nick qualified for the 2020/2021 Tokyo Olympics in March 2021.
“It was a dream and a plan that I always had,” he told the LA Times just before the Games. “I just didn’t expect it this soon.”
10. He won a bronze medal in the men’s foil fencing team event at the 2020/2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. In the individual event, he came in 12th.
11. Listen to legendary U.S. men’s fencer Miles Chamley-Watson tell the team about the time a very shy 8-year-old Nick asked to take a photo with him.
12. The war between Russia and Ukraine which broke out in 2022 has been difficult for his family.
“My family has a lot of close friends and people out there,” Itkin told the press. “There’s a lot of horrible stuff going on there right now and I hope peace comes soon. We’re trying to do the most we can to help them.”
13. Thus far, the only major injury Nick has dealt with in his career was a torn hamstring in 2023. Thankfully, he recovered quickly.
“I think it actually made me stronger. I just took some time away from the sport and focused on building my leg muscles,” Itkin said.
14. Let’s just take a second to appreciate the drip.
15. Some of Nick’s other greatest fencing achievements include an individual silver medal at the 2023 Fencing World Championships and a team silver medal at the 2022 Worlds.
16. Nick won the gold medal at the last fencing Grand Prix before the Paris Olympics. You can watch the entire match bout:
17. As of publication, Nick is currently ranked no. 2 in the world. However he’s previously been ranked no. 1.
18. After the Paris Olympics, Nick will focus on qualifying for the 2028 Olympics which are being held in his hometown of LA.
