Lee Kiefer Become Team USA’s First Women’s Foil World Champion

TBILISI, Georgia — For all her accolades on the international stage — three Olympic gold medals, world No. 1, greatest U.S. women’s foil fencer of all time — there was still one title that eluded Lee Kiefer OLY: world champion.

Until Friday, that is. 

On the fourth day of the 2025 Senior World Championships, Kiefer became the first ever individual women’s foil gold medalist for Team USA.

Adding to the day’s drama, Kiefer almost didn’t even advance from the quarterfinals. Down 11-4 against Batini (ITA), Kiefer had a seven point run that ended up completing her comeback to advance to the semifinals.

Although Kiefer is the reigning back-to-back Olympic champion in women’s individual foil (Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024) she had never secured an individual FIE world title, earning bronzes in 2011 (Catania), 2022 (Cairo) and 2023 (Milan). That changed on day four of the world championships where Kiefer became the first U.S. woman ever to win the women’s foil crown at the Senior World Championships.

“It’s so freaking cool,” Kiefer said. “I've been chasing this for so long, it has been eluding me, and we put a lot of the details together at the right time. So thank you to my coach and Gerek and everyone else.

Kiefer continued to make history adding to the record books as no American woman had claimed the individual foil crown in the 96‑year history of the Senior World Championships.

The previous women’s individual world titles for Team USA came in saber: Rebecca Ward (2006) and Mariel Zagunis (2009, 2010). Only two U.S. fencers now own both individual Olympic and World titles: Mariel Zagunis (saber) and Lee Kiefer (foil).

While the United States was denied a medal in the men’s saber individual competition (after Eli Dershwitz OLY won a world championship in 2023), Team USA saw strong performances from its young squad with Colin Heathcock OLY finishing in 10th place and Mitchell Saron OLY, William Morrill and Antonio Heathcock each advancing to the competition’s second day.