13 Things You Need to Know About U.S. Olympic Fencer Nzingha Prescod
Though Nzingha Prescod placed 22 at London's 2012 Olympics, she's going into this year's Games as the 10th-best fencer in the world. The 23-year-old has medaled in several other international competitions, and will compete as an individual in the foil fencing event in Rio. Below is a snippet of her at the Women's Foil North American Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah, last year. Nzingha is on the left.
1. Nzingha was born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn. She graduated from the city's famed Stuyvesant High School in 2010 and from Columbia University last year with a degree in political science.
2. She appeared in this year's ESPN body issue. She discussed how hard she's worked to become so strong and good at her sport: "I think it's not a coincidence that I've become this top fencer."
3. A lot of her confidence comes from her namesake. Nzingha is named after a 17th-century Angolan warrior Queen who led the resistance against the Portuguese when they tried to expand slave trading farther into Africa. "I love that history," she told the New York Times. "It says I'm black and I'm powerful and I'm fighting for my people."
4. Nzingha began fencing at the age of 9 at the Peter Westbrook Foundation, a nonprofit that teaches inner-city NYC youth how to fence. Now she volunteers there in her spare time.
5. In 2015, she became the first African-American woman to individually medal at a World Championship. At the Moscow competition, she beat the 2012 Olympic champion and medaled bronze. That win boosted her confidence going into her second Olympics: "I know myself, so I can go out there and be myself to the best of my ability," she told Nylon.
6. Should she medal in Rio, she'll be the first African-American woman to do so in the history of the sport as well. The first man to do so was Peter Westbrook in 1984. He went on to found the nonprofit Nzingha began her fencing career at.
7. One of her good friends on the fencing team is making history too. When Ibtihaj Muhammed competes Aug. 8, she'll become the first U.S. athlete to do so while wearing a hijab. Nzingha and Ibtihaj have competed together for years.
8. Though the athletics of the Olympics are exciting to her, Nzingha most looks forward to being a role model to young black women. "Obviously I want to medal," she told the New York Times, "but what gets me really excited is the idea of little black girls turning on the TV to see someone like them fencing."
9. She's a well-rounded athlete. Her coach used to call her and her sister Venus and Serena, and though she would've liked to pursue tennis, she ultimately "fell in love with fencing because you never do the same thing twice. You could fence the same person every day and it's always going to be different."
10. And she's double jointed. "I can jump rope through my arms," Nzingha told ESPN, adding that she has "really flexible shoulders."
11. In 2014, she brutally tore cartilage in her right hip. She needed surgery and five months of rehab before she could get back to fencing. Nzingha's continuous fencing has caused another cartilage defect in her hip; She will undergo more surgery after Rio to fix it - surgery that might effectively end her fencing career.
12. Even if she's forced to finish fencing after the surgery, Nzingha will forever be grateful for the opportunities the sport provided her. "Fencing has given me access to this whole other world," she said. "It's sad, but if you're going into a job interview, they don't want you talking like a girl from Brooklyn - they want you talking like a girl from a fencing club."
13. She killed it at this year's ESPYs. That's all.
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