| Keeth Smart in NYT
March 23, 2003
No. 1 Fencer Grows Up in Brooklyn
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Brooklyn, best known for its bridge and its Bums, has a new claim to fame. It's the home of the world's No. 1 saber fencer.
Keeth Smart, who was born in Brooklyn and works in the corporate finance department of Verizon Communications, finished second to Russia's Stanislav Pozdniakov at a World Cup event in Athens two weeks ago to become the first American to hold the world's top ranking.
Though Pozdniakov won the competition, Smart's finish was enough to pass him in the ranking.
A month earlier, Smart became the first American to reach a world ranking of third or higher with a fifth-place finish in a World Cup event in Budapest. He also finished ninth in a World Cup event in Bonn last month.
"Keeth's result is monumental," said Peter Westbrook, the last American fencer to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in 1984. "Him being the best in the world in a sport that has been dominated by Europeans is still hard to even fathom."
Smart's day starts early and runs late in that part of the city where the Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River and fans still revel in tales of Dem Bums, the Dodgers baseball team that moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1957.
Smart, who has a degree in finance from St. John's University, works full time at Verizon. After work, he trains for three to four hours most days, practicing drills and sparring with other fencers. During the summer off-season, he keeps in shape by running, lifting weights and playing basketball three to four days a week.
"It can be very trying at times because I work at least 45 hours a week," the 24-year-old Smart said. "But it's not as difficult as when I was in high school, because then I had to do homework, too. But it's still difficult because, with my European counterparts, fencing is their full-time job."
Smart's schedule has not kept him from making his opponents look tired. He became a national champion last year after finishing second on two previous occasions. He was also a member of the United States Olympic team in 2000, losing to Damien Touya of France in the second round and finishing 30th. In 2004, he will try to become the first American fencer to win an Olympic medal since Westbrook.
Westbrook, a six-time Olympian, began the Peter Westbrook Foundation in New York in 1991 to introduce fencing to inner-city children. He said the 6-foot, 155-pound Smart, who was one of his first students at the academy, has the athletic ability to end the American medal drought.
"He clearly has a chance to get a medal and might even surpass the bronze medal I got," Westbrook said. "He has legs like a gazelle or a deer or a giraffe. He can take three steps where other guys have to take 10."
Smart was the N.C.A.A. saber champion in 1997 and 1999, and was second in 2000. The competition was stronger in the 2001 world championships, in which he finished 24th, but he moved up to 10th last year and will try to improve his performance at the championships in October in Havana.
Before that, Smart will participate in World Cup events in Padoue, Italy, and Madrid in May before returning home for a World Cup event in New York in June. That event will give many of Smart's friends a chance to see him fence competitively for the first time, but he also hopes it helps increase the popularity of the sport in a country that knows very little about it.
"I think it's a great opportunity, and hopefully we can publicize fencing more," Smart said. "I understand that it won't be a national sport, but hopefully we can have a niche in terms of programming and hopefully get it televised. Any kind of exposure is good."
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