Lindsay Campbell has been fencing since the age of 9. She began as a recreational fencer in Shaker Heights, Ohio at the Alcazar Fencing Club though she quickly became a national level competitor; now at 24, she fences in New York City for the NY Fencers Club under Hungarian coach Kornel Udvarhelyi. This year, she is a member of the US World Championship team and the US World University Games team. She has excelled in epee fencing since an early age, winning the under 13 women’s epee at junior Olympics in 1994. She made the US cadet (under 17) world team and the junior pan am team in 1996. As a young adult, she turned her focus primarily to collegiate fencing, excelling over her four years at Princeton. She was first team all ivy for three years (all of her competitive years, as she went abroad one year) and second team all American twice. In her senior year she was an Academic All American as well as Academic All Ivy. She showed leadership on the team by serving as epee squad leader for two years, helping to lead her team to numerous ivy and eastern conference championships, and winning the Wanda Sieja team leadership/sportsmanship award in her freshman year. Lindsay continues to compete nationally and internationally with a goal of making the 2008 Olympic team in Beijing. Most of all, she is enjoying the journey of the amateur athlete: training, competing, traveling the world, making friends, and learning from every win and loss.

In addition to being a competitive fencer, Lindsay is dedicated to her academic and work interests. She is currently pursuing a Masters in City Planning at MIT and working as research community planner for the US Forest Service Northeastern Research Station out of New York City. Her interest is in both urban ecology and community development, and in understanding how the physical shape of the environment and the act of stewardship over the land can interact to help support neighborhood life. She is at MIT on a full research fellowship doing work for the US Geological Survey on consensus building in environmental policy disputes. Clearly, how humans interact with their environment is a vital interest to Lindsay. She has worked jointly with Forest Service colleagues to publish a number of technical reports and pending papers on urban environmental stewardship, and specifically on “living memorials” that use open space to remember and recover from 9/11. Her colleagues at the Forest Service are very supportive of her dream to go to the Olympics, and allow her to have a flexible work schedule for all her international travel. She is grateful to have a life that involves research, people, sport, and urbanism, just a few of her many loves.

As I got up to the strip to fence the final, anchor-leg bout of the US versus Cuba team match at the 2005 Havana Grand Prix, I looked at my opponent and thought about what I had to do. I had three minutes to make up a five touch deficit. This is not an easy task in epee, where the leader has a huge advantage because of ability to get double touches and run down the clock. In fact, it seemed like an almost impossible feat, except that I had done it before in other situations. I love team fencing, and feel comfortable fencing in the pressure situation of the final spot. In one moment, I could feel the memory of fencing the Austrians, the Swiss, but also Columbia University, Yale University. It was the same game. It was simply a matter of taking it one touch at a time. Although the Cubans are extremely fast and strong, known for their own unique style, I knew my timing could beat them if I kept my head about me and made sure I initiated the actions and controlled the tempo of the bout.

And so I began, working carefully and quickly to score touches without being hit myself, giving it my all and holding back nothing. I scored the first touch on an attack to the body. I scored the second touch on her toe, just the sort of risky maneuver that this bout called for. The three small American voices of my teammates were drowned out by the sounds of angry Spanish ricocheting off the marble halls of the hotel lobby where we were competing. I couldn’t help put notice the crowd and television cameras behind her; our competition seemed no less than a geopolitical face-off, given the fervor with which her supporters cheered. One double touch later and the gap remained the same, three touches behind with not much time to go. I scored the three touches one after another; in fact I barely even remember the actions. I know now, looking back, that I was in the zone. I don’t think there is anything my opponent could have done to stop me. I was simply too focused on every single action and nothing but the action. With the score tied we both “played the clock” until it ran down the last few seconds, waiting to go the extra minute of sudden-death overtime.

I re-collected myself as the referee determined who had “priority.” She did. This meant that if at the end of the final minute, no one had scored a touch, she would be declared the winner. But I wasn’t going to let that happen. I returned to my en garde line, foot throbbing from an earlier injury, but still focused and determined. I began to attack, pushing her slowly back, but not rushing. A minute is plenty of time to score a touch. I felt the clock running down; it felt almost like a drill in practice. I could sense how little time I had and knew I had to make something happened. I launched an attack with my longest possible lunge, giving it one more effort and I did it! One light! My touch! I had beaten the Cuban 7-1 in the final period of the team match on her own home turf. Sweat poured from my face as I shook her hand and walked back, shocked, to my teammates.

We were jubilant. It didn’t matter that we were fencing for 11th place. No one can take that victory away from me. I visualize it often when I need to conjure up some strength, to know what I am capable of. To me it symbolizes fencing as it should occur: one touch at a time.