Jamaica Resident Is Athens-Bound

When the sabre fencers wield their weapons in Athens next week, Ivan Lee will be the lanky one with the wire-rimmed glasses under his mask.
It wont matter that the Jamaica resident is acutely nearsighted and slender (511" and 160 pounds with his equipment on). He says it is more important for a fencer to be intelligent and "brutally aggressive" to succeed in a sport he calls "physical chess."
It also helps to be resourceful. Lee was a journalism major at St. Johns University and because he was often on the road between assignments, he wrote many an article on fencing. In fact, one he wrote during his senior year may have provided the insight needed to score a major upset over one of his potential adversaries: four-time Olympic gold medalist Stanislav Pozdnyakov of Russia. Lee interviewed him in a hotel lobby between matches and says he learned a simple rule but one that can lead to a lot of victories "never give up." It almost paid off the last time they met, in June at a Grand Prix event in New York. Pozdnyakov took an early lead, Lee rallied back, but in the end the overpowering Russian defeated Lee for the third straight time.
While Pozdnyakov and his countrymen have long dominated sabre fencing, Lee was not an obvious Olympic candidate when he began the sport at age 13. And it wasnt necessarily because of his physical attributes (great fencers come in all sizes), but because he was a baseball nut who was not impressed by what appeared to be at first glance, "a bunch of kids stabbing each other and hitting each other with sticks."
Coincidentally, after being coaxed back to the gym, Lee began to enjoy the sport when he was taught how to hit his opponents in the head properly. He was further motivated when he saw his peers winning sizable trophies.
Over the next decade, Lee accumulated some of his own awards, including a pair of gold medals at the 2003 Pan American Games. He was also a two-time NCAA champion at St. Johns as well as the 2001 U.S. National champion.
Athens will mark Lees first Olympics. Although he has been competing on foreign soil since high school, the Games in Greece remain a world away from his house in Jamaica, where he lives a routine, almost mundane existence besides his training regimen.
His parents, Desmond, an auto mechanic, and Cynthia, the assistant principal at P.S. 138, will make the trip to Europe, but Lee has gained another family through fencing. He says the U.S. team is so close that, "Everyone feels a win and everyone feels a loss." Their cohesiveness along with Lees newfound tenacity as a result of his Pozdnyakov interview may lead the American squad to its first Olympic fencing medal in 20 years. His first chance will be on Saturday in the individual sabre. His other event, team sabre, will be contested on Thursday, August 19 where he will join forces with St. Johns teammates Keeth Smart and John Tiomkin and Jason Rogers of Los Angeles.
Aimee Berg is a freelance writer.