Peter Westbrook is the only American in the last 40 years to win a medal
in the
Olympic Games in the sport of
fencing.
Growing up in the projects of Newark, New Jersey, Westbrook took
up fencing to propel himself out of the slums after his mother convinced
him to try the sport. He first appeared in the Olympics at the '76
Montreal Summer Olympics at the age of 22, and he competed at every Olympics
from then through 1996 (excepting the United States' boycott of the 1980
Moscow Games).
At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, he won the bronze medal in
men's sabre, becoming the first and only American since
1960 to win a Olympic fencing medal.
As a result of his accomplishments at the previous five Games, Westbrook
was given the great honor of carrying the flag for the US delegation at
the closing ceremonies of the 1992 Olympic Games--the same honor granted to Rulon Gardner at the 2000 Games after Gardner's monumental upset of Alexander Karelin. He competed one
more time, at the '96 Atlanta Games, and then retired from Olympic competition
to run the Peter Westbrook Foundation full time--a foundation he created
which is dedicated to enriching the lives of New York City's youth through
fencing.
Westbrook's accomplishments: