Hamilton fencer eyeing next summer Olympics after historic medal
Eleanor Harvey visited with guests, gave a fencing demonstration and answered questions from journalist Steve Paikin at an event celebrating her bronze-winning performance in Paris.
Canada’s first Olympic medallist in fencing, Hamilton native Eleanor Harvey, says she’s working toward qualifying for her fourth Games in 2028.
That’s pretty remarkable considering the 29-year-old announced her retirement from the sport after the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. She said she was physically and mentally exhausted. But after a new coach in Alice Lu injected a second life into her fencing career, she recommitted to the sport and made history in the process.
Harvey won a bronze medal in the individual foil fencing event in Paris in July and led the team to a fourth-place finish after a defeat to Japan. Coming into the Olympics ranked 14th in the world, Harvey beat higher-seeded fencers at each step of her journey to the podium.
Harvey was the guest of honour at an event in downtown Hamilton last week that included a meet and great with the McMaster University fencing team, posing for photos with guests, and demonstrations of the sport.
The highlight was an interview by TVO journalist and fellow Hamilton native Steve Paikin in a fourth-floor space in the newly renovated King John Buildings at 62-64 King St.
All photos: Kristi Boulton
Her final match in Paris, which she won 15-12 against Alice Volpi of Italy, was an intense moment, said Harvey.
“I knew if I won this, I would win an Olympic medal, but I hadn't actually taken the time to imagine how that would feel like in my body. So when I actually scored that point I basically stopped feeling anything, and was observing. I could see, OK, everyone is cheering. My coach is super happy, everyone is so excited. But it took quite a while for it to actually sink in, because it was just so meaningful for me.”
Harvey told Paikin that she intends to seek to qualify for the next Olympics: 2028 in Los Angeles.
“I took about a month off of fencing after the Olympics, but I was excited to kind of get going again, and especially because my team is so young. All of my teammates are, like, under 20,” she said. “We were very close to winning a team medal. And so I think my next thing that I'm really focused on is winning a team World Cup medal. I think that that would be a big step for Canadian fencing. We've had individuals win medals, but never a team.”
Paikin asked about Harvey’s motivation when competing with a sword in her hand.
“Are you thinking I just need to score points, or are you thinking I want to stab them through the heart?”
Harvey answered: “A little bit of both. Usually I'm focused on my gait. So every fencer has their own style, and you're basically just trying to control the bout to make it fit into your game and into your strengths. So what I'm good at is running up and down the strip, getting people to over commit and make a mistake, so I can counter attack or push them, so I can attack.”
So her tactic is to get opponents to fall into her game.
That has definitely worked for her.
In her Olympic debut at Rio 2016, Eleanor Harvey defeated the world’s No. 1-ranked fencer to advance to the quarterfinals of the individual foil event. With her seventh-place finish, Harvey achieved Canada’s best-ever Olympic result in an individual fencing event.
That came one year after she helped Canada win women’s team foil gold at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. Harvey went on to compete in individual foil at the next Pan Am Games in 2019 in Lima, winning a bronze medal. She would also win medals in two team events – silver in team foil and bronze in team sabre. Harvey was a double silver medallist in both the individual and team foil events in her third Pan Am Games in Santiago in 2023.
Harvey said she began dreaming of going to Olympics after watching the 2000 Sydney Olympics on TV at five years old. She initially envisioned being an Olympic runner. But she jumped on the suggestion of a family friend to try fencing, which had some similarities to the karate she had been studying.
So pretend sword fighting in the backyard led to fencing lessons beginning at age 10.
When it came time for university, Harvey accepted a scholarship from Ohio State University, where a six-time Olympic medallist is the head coach.
“I didn't really know anything about NCAA fencing. But turns out it’s a pretty big thing down there, and I knew if I wanted to improve, it was kind of the place to go,” Harvey told the Hamilton crowd.
Competing collegiately for the Ohio State University Buckeyes, Harvey won the NCAA Championships as a junior in 2016. In 2017, she tied for third at the NCAA Championships.
The journey hasn’t always been easy. Harvey's mom had to sell her Westdale home to be able to afford fencing tournaments, and the mother-daughter duo moved in with Harvey's grandmother, who slept on the couch so that her granddaughter could have a bed.
Fencing competitions have taken Harvey, 29, all around the world since she started competing at age 12: France, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Cuba, among other countries. This week, she’s in Bulgaria.
In addition to her own training, Harvey has begun to coach. She’s been coaching at a club in Calgary for four years and recently moved to Richmond, B.C., which she says has one of the strongest fencing clubs in the country. As she contemplates her future, Harvey says she intends to remain in fencing in some capacity after she retires from competition.
