Jewish US Olympic fencer Nick Itkin says piercing family history led to his bronze win
Both his parents are athletic coaches who came to America from Ukraine, so it’s no surprise the medalist is already eyeing the gold when the Games come to his hometown LA in 2028
PARIS — Nick Itkin could not contain his emotion. Moments after winning his bronze medal in the men’s individual foil category of fencing at the Paris Olympics, the tears started coming.
“You just think about how you spent four years for that one day,” the 24-year-old from Los Angeles told The Times of Israel. “You’re training so hard, going to so many tournaments, so many sacrifices that I made, and it’s all for that one bout. So, when you finally get that medal around your neck, that is kind of like a moment of relief, and you can finally enjoy the moment. And I can see all my friends and family cheering for me, and it’s just kind of an accumulation of so many years and sacrifices being worth it.”
Of the 20 fencers who represented Team USA in Paris, six are Jewish or have Jewish roots. Itkin was the only one to win an individual medal in Paris, although Jackie Dubrovich and Maia Weintraub were part of the gold-medal-winning women’s foil team, which was led by stars Lee Kiefer and Lauren Scruggs, who finished first and second in the individual competition.
Itkin’s connection to both his fencing and Jewish heritage can be attributed to his father Michael, the son of a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to America from Ukraine — then part of the Soviet Union — in the 1990s.
Michael Itkin was a professional fencer from Kyiv, while his wife Tatyana, also from Kyiv, was a rhythmic gymnastics coach.
“When my parents moved here, they were doing all kinds of hard labor jobs, doing whatever they could to get accustomed to the United States and learn the language,” said Itkin, who also appeared in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, where he won a team bronze in foil and finished 12th in the individual competition.
“Eventually, they started coaching, and in 2004 my father opened up his fencing club in LA,” Itkin said. “Half of the gym is used for fencing, the other half for rhythmic gymnastics. My dad runs the fencing and my mom runs the rhythmic gymnastics.”
He recalled how as a young child, he and his older sister Julia — who is now a member of the US national rhythmic gymnastics team — would go to school and then head straight to the gym and spend the rest of the day there. After getting his homework done, he’d be fascinated watching all the fencing. Then one day, at age 7, he decided he’d had enough of watching.
“Eventually, I was like, ‘Alright, it’s time for me to do this,’ and I put on a mask and started fencing and had so much fun with it. I guess that’s how it all started for me,” Itkin said.
Under his father’s tutelage, Itkin improved quickly and saw his passion for the sport increase even more as he began to compete. After high school, he went to the University of Notre Dame, where he collected back-to-back collegiate foil fencing titles in 2018 and 2019 while graduating with a degree in business and political science.
A string of national championships followed, along with World Cup titles. He became the first American male fencer to ever win an individual medal at consecutive world championships, with a bronze in 2022 and silver in 2023. Earlier this year, he held the number-one world ranking for a time, before slipping back slightly to enter Paris as the tournament’s second seed.
In Paris, he almost didn’t make it into the semifinals. Foil fencing bouts end when one fencer gets to 15 points. In his quarterfinal match-up against Italian Guillaume Bianci, the two were tied at 14-14, with the winner of the game point going on to a chance at a medal and the loser going home.
“I knew it was going to be a battle of nerves because at the end of the bout, that’s when all the crazy comebacks happen. Everything was on the line with that one touch. So I could feel all that energy and that pressure, and when I finally got that one point, I just had so much excitement to get into that medal round,” said Itkin, who would lose his semifinal to another Italian opponent 15-11, before registering his medal-clinching victory over a Japanese competitor, 15-12.
In the elaborate Grand Palais, in front of a boisterous crowd of about 8,000 spectators, Itkin described the setting as by far the best the sport has ever had. That made it even more thrilling, he said, to be able to share the achievement of a lifelong dream with his father.
“My dad, obviously, has coached me since I was a little kid, and I know how much this means to him,” Itkin said. “You could argue that it means more to him than to me. In my bouts, whenever I turned around, I’d see him, either nervously shaking, or jumping up and down with excitement, so I could always feel the emotion off of him. It was just a super special moment.”
After the COVID bubble in Tokyo took a lot of the fun away from the Olympic experience, Itkin said he was delighted to be able to attend many sports events in Paris after his competition ended, before taking part in the closing ceremony and flying home on August 12.
Now his attention turns to 2028 and the opportunity of a lifetime. The upcoming Games will not just be in his country, but in his hometown — with the athletes’ village likely to be just blocks from where he lives.
“I want that gold medal so badly, and what better place to do it than in my home city,” Itkin said.
Itkin visited Israel in 2022 with his father and immediate family right after winning his first world championship medal.
“It was a big moment for my father,” Itkin said. “For as long as I can remember, he always wanted to do that trip. To get to experience the culture, to visit Jerusalem, it meant a lot for us as a family.”
Itkin added that he hopes to return to Israel one day, and maybe even work with some kids on the fencing piste to help boost the development of the sport among youngsters in Israel.
“If there are kids who ever wanted to learn, then we’ll be there for them,” he said.
