The enigmatic Rebecca Ward is a former record-breaking sabre fencer from the United States. She is best known for her two bronze medals from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and her gold and silver medals from the 2006 World Championships in Turin. She also has the distinction of being the first sabre fencer to win three NCAA championship titles and is also the youngest fencer to have won a senior World Championship (achieved when she was just 16 years old). She went out on top, retiring at the end of the 2007/08 season whilst still ranked the world’s number one women’s sabre fencer. She has kept a low public profile ever since but was rightfully inducted into the United States Fencing Hall of Fame in 2013.

Ward was born in Colorado in February 1990. She came to prominence quickly, being part of the gold-medal-winning US team at the 2005 World Championships and winning three world titles in 2006: Cadet, Junior, and Senior. Unsurprisingly, she was ranked world number one by 2007. She qualified for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and won bronze in both the individual and team sabre tournaments.

Unusually, then, by the time Ward enrolled at Duke, she was already a seasoned Olympian and world champion fencer. It’s little surprise that she took the NCAA by storm, winning the sabre championship title in 2009, 2011, and 2012 and setting a new NCAA record. Since then, she has worked in clean energy leadership, but she has also retained an interest in fencing, acting as Sabre Program Director for a fencing club in Arlington, Virginia.