Brooklynite athlete Race Imboden, who stars in Opening Ceremony's Spring/Summer 2014 film "Into the Light," has been an international fencing champion since the tender age of 14. His innocently seductive performance in the video made us curious to know more about the man behind the fencing foil. Before his matches at the Fencing World Cup in La Coruña, Spain (where the US team took home bronze!), the Olympian opened up to director, Maryam L'Ange, about fencing, fashion, gay rights, and what really went on at the Olympic village.
Maryam L'Ange: How did you start fencing? It's unusual for someone from Brooklyn to be a pro fencer. What drew you to it?
Race Imboden: When I was a little kid I loved playing swords. If I could swing at something, I was chopping like crazy. When I was eight years old, I was playing in a park, hacking at a tree with a stick. A stranger on a park bench (not as creepy as it sounds) told my mum she should take me fencing. At the time, my parents didn’t know a thing about fencing so they looked up a club in Atlanta, where we were living at the time, and we went down to sign up. Unfortunately, the people running the place said I had to be nine years old to join. I marked the date on a calendar in my room and when I turned nine I went back, joined up, and started taking lessons. My family moved to New York City just a few months later and there was a fencing club on the same street where we were living in Manhattan! We then moved to Brooklyn and I continued fencing, making my way up. The Tri-State area, and NYC in particular, is a real hotbed for the sport of fencing. We have a good century and a half—or more—of sword-sport tradition in the city and I am really proud to be a part of that.
Fencing isn't as big in the States as the rest of the world, but you're now the face of it and bringing it to the US masses. What's the hardest part about fencing? Is it mastering footwork, the mental game?
Thanks for the compliment. I don’t know about being the face of fencing, but I am very proud and humbled to represent the United States internationally in the sport that I love. An old saying calls fencing “physical chess,” and I have to say that it’s true. It’s a precision sport that depends on endurance, speed, reflex, and muscle memory—all the while you’re reacting to your opponent and trying to outwit them on the strip. It’s hard to say which part is the most difficult. I will say that for me, the biggest obstacle I had to overcome to excel was a mental one. Growing up, I had a hard time controlling my emotions during the bout. When I was young, I would get upset at myself, or something my opponent was doing, or calls the referee was making. It often got the best of me and I ended up losing the match. When I finally got it in my head to harness that energy and put it to work for me against my opponent, I really began to progress in the sport.
If it's possible to put into words, what was it like competing in the 2012 Olympic games?
Oh man, it’s really hard to put into words. To earn the right to compete at the very top of your sport, something you’ve committed your life to achieving, and then to walk into the Olympic Stadium as part of Team USA... It felt pretty damn good, that’s for sure. Haha! Honestly, I couldn’t have been more excited and honored to be a member of Team USA, especially in London because my mum’s home country is England, so it was doubly awesome. For nine years, I had been working toward the goal of making the Olymp
Maryam L'Ange: How did you start fencing? It's unusual for someone from Brooklyn to be a pro fencer. What drew you to it?
Race Imboden: When I was a little kid I loved playing swords. If I could swing at something, I was chopping like crazy. When I was eight years old, I was playing in a park, hacking at a tree with a stick. A stranger on a park bench (not as creepy as it sounds) told my mum she should take me fencing. At the time, my parents didn’t know a thing about fencing so they looked up a club in Atlanta, where we were living at the time, and we went down to sign up. Unfortunately, the people running the place said I had to be nine years old to join. I marked the date on a calendar in my room and when I turned nine I went back, joined up, and started taking lessons. My family moved to New York City just a few months later and there was a fencing club on the same street where we were living in Manhattan! We then moved to Brooklyn and I continued fencing, making my way up. The Tri-State area, and NYC in particular, is a real hotbed for the sport of fencing. We have a good century and a half—or more—of sword-sport tradition in the city and I am really proud to be a part of that.
Fencing isn't as big in the States as the rest of the world, but you're now the face of it and bringing it to the US masses. What's the hardest part about fencing? Is it mastering footwork, the mental game?
Thanks for the compliment. I don’t know about being the face of fencing, but I am very proud and humbled to represent the United States internationally in the sport that I love. An old saying calls fencing “physical chess,” and I have to say that it’s true. It’s a precision sport that depends on endurance, speed, reflex, and muscle memory—all the while you’re reacting to your opponent and trying to outwit them on the strip. It’s hard to say which part is the most difficult. I will say that for me, the biggest obstacle I had to overcome to excel was a mental one. Growing up, I had a hard time controlling my emotions during the bout. When I was young, I would get upset at myself, or something my opponent was doing, or calls the referee was making. It often got the best of me and I ended up losing the match. When I finally got it in my head to harness that energy and put it to work for me against my opponent, I really began to progress in the sport.
If it's possible to put into words, what was it like competing in the 2012 Olympic games?
Oh man, it’s really hard to put into words. To earn the right to compete at the very top of your sport, something you’ve committed your life to achieving, and then to walk into the Olympic Stadium as part of Team USA... It felt pretty damn good, that’s for sure. Haha! Honestly, I couldn’t have been more excited and honored to be a member of Team USA, especially in London because my mum’s home country is England, so it was doubly awesome. For nine years, I had been working toward the goal of making the Olymp