Burn Ban in Effect. All outdoor burning is prohibited in Franklin County.
Last week Leslie McFarland Marx and the U.S. Women's Epee Team won gold medals in the Veterans 50+ competition at the World Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia. Leslie won the individual gold and was on the U.S. team that won the team event. In the photo above, Leslie is the left-handed fencer scoring a touch on her opponent.
This event is essentially the Olympics for “veterans”; veterans are over 50 years old. The format is the same as the Olympics, except veterans fence to 10 touches instead of 15.
If you are geographically challenged about that part of the world, as I am, Georgia is a country with a population of 30 million, between Turkey to the south and Russia to the north. Everything in Tbilisi is really, really old.
Leslie’s husband Jeff was originally planning to go with Leslie to Tbilisi. But... as the safety of air travel deteriorated in the area, they decided Jeff should stay home in North Carolina so that, if something happened to Leslie, the kids would still have a parent. (Hmmmm...not exactly what a father wants to hear.)
Leslie was seeded 80th out of 83 competitors. The seeds are based on last world championships and age. Leslie didn’t fence in the last championships, and at 59 she was one of the oldest fencers in the Veterans 50+ draw, so… she entered the tournament as a low seed. But that was about to change.
SHE WON! It’s a long road to win a World Championship. Leslie fenced competitors from Great Britain, Poland, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Georgia, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and France to get to the final. In the final, she fenced a woman from Belgium and earned a decisive 10-4 win. The photo above is the moment of victory.
In the team event, the coaches select three fencers to represent their team. Each team member fences each member of the other team, for a total of 3x3=9 matches. The touches from each match are added up. Most total touches wins.
The U.S. team in the photo above won the gold medal! This is a really good win for the U.S! The fencing events tend to be dominated by the Europeans, where they start fencing in grade school. Leslie started fencing as a freshman at Duke.
Leslie’s Fencing. Leslie has a distinguished fencing resume that spans three decades.
* 1993. Won the gold medal at the U.S. National Championships
* 1995. Won the gold medal in Women's Epee at the Pan Am Games in Argentina. (That was BIG!)
* 1996. Won the gold medal at the U.S. National Championships
* 1996. Captain of the U.S. Women’s Epee team at the Olympics in Atlanta
* 2017. Won the individual and team gold medal at the Veterans 50+ World Championships in Slovenia
* 2026. Won the individual and team gold medal at the 2026 Veterans 50+ World Championships in Georgia
While training for the Olympics, Leslie was a professor at Rochester University. The School was very supportive of Leslie’s Olympic ambitions. They gave her a teaching schedule that allowed her to go to Europe every other weekend to fence in the European tournaments against the best in the world.
Every time Leslie lost a match, she would make detailed notes on what her opponent had done. Then her coach in Rochester would try to duplicate those strategies, and Leslie would learn to defeat them.
That time and attention to detail paid off at the Olympics. In one of the later rounds, she came up against a woman from Estonia who had beaten Leslie in Europe. Leslie is 6 feet tall. The woman from Estonia was 6 feet 2 inches, and she was the higher seed. They were the two prettiest women in the fencing draw. They drew a big crowd.
Leslie’s homework paid off. It was a close, hard-fought match, but Leslie won.
Leslie was seeded 23rd at the Olympics. She finished 16th. She had a really good experience.
Chelsea Clinton took a special interest in Leslie. She came to all of Leslie’s matches. After each match, a Secret Service agent would come ask Leslie if she would have a few minutes to spend with Chelsea.
When Chelsea stood up to leave, the Secret Service agents on either side of her would stand up, and then at least a dozen other agents in black suits and ties with a listening device in their ears would stand up. They were scattered all over the gym but had kept a low profile.
In the U.S. match with Austria, it was tied after the regulation 9 bouts. So… it went into sudden death overtime. With one touch, it’s over. Each coach picks their best fencer. Leslie fenced for the U.S.
The fencing competition took place in a giant gym with multiple matches going on at the same time. By the time the U.S./Austria match finished regulation time and was getting ready for the sudden death overtime, all of the other matches were over. So all of the people in the gym came over to the U.S/Austria strip to see the sudden death. It was a huge crowd.
Leslie got the touch! The crowd and the other team members went crazy. It was easily the loudest and most exciting moment of the fencing tournament.
Leslie is a frequent visitor to Mount Vernon, and she will be here again in December. A few years ago she fenced an exhibition bout with Ridley Briggs at the Rotary Club Friday lunch. Ridley’s bruises have probably healed by now.
Leslie’s daughter Holly designed and installed the 17 panels on the birding trails at Pure Hope Ranch as part of a Girl Scout project that won a National Girl Scout award.
As a professor in the MBA program at Duke University, Leslie served as Chairman of the Judicial Board that makes decisions about the future of students accused of Code of Conduct violations. From that experience, she wrote the real-life ethics cases that we use in Leaders of Tomorrow.
I was grateful that I could go watch Leslie at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
The culture of the Olympics is inspirational. The overwhelming majority of athletes competing have no hope of a medal, but they don’t care. They are proud to be representing their Country, and they are there to participate in the Olympic experience.
The athletes stay together in the Olympic village. They eat their meals together. They are kind, generous, and supportive of each other. And they have FUN!
The Olympics were the most exciting athletic event I have ever attended (even better than the OU – Texas football game). The marquee sports (gymnastics, basketball, boxing, etc.) were sold out, so when I wasn’t watching fencing, I saw wrestling, table tennis, and a host of other minor sports. It was soooo much fun.
When we encourage our kids to participate in sports, we should hope they experience the sportsmanship that is so evident at the Olympics. It was the way our sports should be.
Congratulations to the U.S. Veteran Epee Team! You are World Champions! Very well done!
