Nick Itkin wins bronze in Paris, becoming first of Jewish fencers to medal
Itkin also won bronze in the team competition at the 2020 Tokyo Games
Nick Itkin celebrates winning the men’s foil individual bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, July 29, 2024, in Paris. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Fencer Nick Itkin has medaled in his second straight Olympics, winning a bronze on Monday.
Itkin, 24, a Los Angeles native and the No. 2-ranked men’s foil fencer in the world, won bronze in the individual men’s foil competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, defeating Japan’s Kazuki Iimura 15-12.
Itkin’s win is the U.S. team’s third foil medal so far in Paris, following Lee Kiefer and Lauren Scruggs’ respective gold and silver medals in the women’s foil event.
Itkin won a bronze medal in the team foil competition at the Tokyo Olympics, but placed twelfth in the individual contest in those games. He is also a two-time NCAA champion. Last year he became the first American man, and third U.S. fencer overall, to win individual medals at back-to-back world championships after winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Fencing Championships.
Itkin is one of six fencers out of 20 on the U.S. team in Paris who are Jewish or come from Jewish families. They have not performed as well so far.
Fellow U.S. fencers Eli Dershwitz, Jackie Dubrovich and Mitchell Saron all lost early matches this weekend, knocking them out of individual competition. Yuval Freilich, the first Israeli man to become a European fencing champion, also lost in a surprise upset in his first match.
Itkin’s father Misha is a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who opened a fencing club in L.A., where he coached his son. The pair also traveled to Israel together in 2022.
“I can’t say that I’m very much involved in the Jewish religion, but my father, it’s a huge part of his identity so obviously I grew up experiencing the culture and the religion,” Itkin told the Sporting Tribune in May. “When we visited Israel, it was one of his goals, to bring his family there. It meant a lot to him.”
Itkin will compete in the team foil competition on Sunday when the U.S. team takes on Egypt in the first round.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
