Maxine Mitchell
Maxine Mitchell was a beloved fencing champion. She won the US National Women’s Foil title 4 times and competed at 4 Olympic Games. In 1952 in Helsinki, she finished in a 4 way tie for the Bronze medal.
After touches were counted, she wound up in 5th place. At the 1956 Melbourne Games, she tore a tendon in her right elbow at the end of her first round pool in which she was undefeated.
In agony, she lost all her bouts in the next round and was eliminated. The following season, she switched to fencing with her left hand and was still able to make the finals at Nationals, winning her A rating. She is the only fencer known to have an A rating with both hands.
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More Fencing!!!
To fulfill a request made by a concerned reader of our website, I now present… Fencing! It is, after all, what the website is purportedly about, yet I do tend to get caught up in personalities and storylines. Blame my upbringing. Still, a little fencing tournament...
Maxine
It’s interesting, writing stories about people who you never knew well. I knew Maxine well enough to recognize her when she walked into a tournament. She was always wearing a USA sweat suit of an older vintage. Even as a newbie fencer, you could recognize the respect given by those around you to someone who had
American Fencing Magazine, Issue No. 1
I thought I’d focus on another fencing publication, but this time, the granddaddy of them all; American Fencing Magazine. First published in November of 1949, the early issues give a fair rundown of the happenings across the nation.
1964 Letterman Open Foil
Harold Hayes of The Pacific Fencing Club on Alameda Island, Oakland, CA has been a generous contributor of cool things for the Archive. Among other things, he transferred possession of two long boxes of material he received from Mary “Demi” Huddleson, past editor of...
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