Meet Our Founder

Nzingha Prescod is an Olympic fencer, World Medalist, and Brooklyn native. She became the first Black woman to win an individual medal at the Senior World Championships. In July of 2018 she and her team captured Team USA’s first-ever World Championships gold medal for the USA Foil. She is the first American woman to win a foil Grand Prix and has ranked as high as fifth in the world.

She is one of the most decorated fencers in American history and has achieved record-breaking wins, but fencing was an unlikely path.

Growing up in under-resourced public schools in the outskirts of Flatbush, Brooklyn, competitive sports and quality youth development experiences were widely inaccessible due to financial and geographical barriers.

 

Despite the odds, Nzingha earned the opportunity to pursue high performance fencing training after being introduced to the Peter Westbrook Foundation in Manhattan at age 9 under the tutelage of Olympic Coach, Buckie Leach.

 
 

Through mentorship, discipline, and dedicated support, Nzingha was able to ascend in her professional fencing career to achieve success internationally in the sport and ultimately, represent the United States on the Olympic stage, breaking historic records in American fencing. After forcibly retiring from fencing due to injury, Nzingha decided to embark on a new chapter and turn her journey into a positive. Motivated to bring the talents she developed back to her community, she decided to bring fencing to the local parks in her neighborhood.

In the summer of 2020, Nzingha launched Fencing in the Park, teaming with Junior World Champion and Board Member, Sara Taffel, dedicated family, friends and supporters.

 

Fencing

  • Senior World Championships Team Gold Medalist

  • Senior World Championships Individual Bronze Medalist

  • Senior World Championships Team Silver Medalist

  • Senior World Championships Team Bronze Medalist

  • 2012 and 2016 Olympian

  • 2011 Junior World Champion

  • 2008 and 2009 Cadet World Champion

Professional Experience & Advocacy

  • Founder & Executive Director, Fencing in the Park (FITP)

  • Member, USA Fencing Board of Directors

  • Member, USOPC Council on Racial & Social Justice

  • Thought Leader of NYC Office of Sports & Recreation Bill

  • Columbia University, 2014

  • Stuyvesant High School, 2010

  • Senior Consultant at Big 4 Firm