Hamilton celebrates local Olympic fencer Eleanor Harvey

McMaster fencing attends celebration of first Canadian Olympic fencing medalist, Marauder women's foilist demonstrates the sport with the history-making athlete

On the evening of Wednesday Nov. 14, 2024, members of the Hamilton community celebrated Hamiltonian and Olympic fencer Eleanor Harvey for making history at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this past summer.

On the second day of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the 29-year-old foil fencer won the bronze medal in women's individual foil after defeating opponent Alice Volpi of Italy 15-12.

With this, she became the first Canadian in history to win an Olympic medal in fencing. No Canadian before Harvey competing in any of the three disciplines of fencing - foil, épée and sabre - had ever brought home a medal from the Olympics.

The celebration of her accomplishment was held in downtown Hamilton in The King John Building at Gore Park. The event was hosted by Hamilton artist Patrick Bermingham.

Over 100 individuals were in attendance, including the Mayor of Hamilton, Andrea Horwath, who briefly spoke at the event and congratulated Harvey on her success. Journalist Steve Paikin attended and interviewed Harvey about her career and what it was like in the heat of the moment just before and after winning her medal in the Grand Palais in Paris.

Also in attendance were some members of McMaster's varsity fencing team, as well as Head Coach Dave O'Donnell and coaches Allan Fein and Vickie Ho-Devine. Before the formal part of the event, several Marauder fencers had the opportunity to meet and speak with Harvey.

Later during the formal celebration, Harvey demonstrated foil fencing to everyone in attendance with Marauder foilist Aurora Boone. The two fenced a bout against one another in the centre of the venue, with all the attendees watching along the side of the room.

After the event, Boone spoke to The Silhouette about what it was like to fence with the ground-breaking Olympian. She described the nerves she came into the match with.

"I was definitely nervous. I did end up getting a point on her which I was really happy about so I didn't get totally wiped. But yeah, I was definitely nervous. But once I got into it, I felt like the nerves kind of flew away. We were surrounded by a huge crowd of people and I had pretty much totally forgotten that once we actually started fencing. So I was pretty excited,” said Boone.

Boone also described the high level of skill which Harvey possessed and demonstrated. Boone tried to trick Harvey several times into following a pattern and then catching her off guard by changing that pattern, but Harvey would not fall for it.

“She was incredibly skilled at knowing that I was trying to fool her in that sense, so she didn't fall for it, which definitely showed me a lot of her strength because usually even the strongest of fencers, it's really hard for them to pinpoint those little intricacies,” said Boone.

The event and the match has inspired Boone for the current McMaster fencing season.

“I think it's definitely given me a lot of inspiration and a bit of a fire under me to feel like this is how good you can be when you really put in the work and you do a lot of practice,” said Boone.

Eleanor Harvey's Olympic medal is a moment in history for Canadian fencing. Following her Olympic medal, Harvey has already won another bronze medal at the women's foil world cup in Tunisia and she looks forward to achieving more success in the future.