Major congratulations are in order for fourteen-year-old Nazir Primus. The Brooklyn athlete won gold at the U.S. Fencing National Championship.
Primus started fencing when he was 10-years-old, four years ago. When he first started practicing the sport, Primus said that he never thought winning the U.S. National Championship was a possibility for him.
“I just started as just a casual thing,” Primus said in a recent interview with News12.com. “But as I started doing it more I thought this could be something I’m good at and something I wanted to do.”
To get to this championship level, of course this talented athlete put in the work. At first, he would practice in the streets of Brooklyn with his father in order to improve not only his strategy, but his technique as well. Yet, his determination to master his sport found him also training at the Peter Westbrook Foundation.
And then of course, the pandemic hit. But, Primus didn’t let that derail his training. On the contrary, he said in his interview that during this time, he made his biggest improvements. During this time, he had the opportunity to work with Aki Spencer-El, fencing coach at Columbia University and himself an Olympian. He also worked with Daryl Homer, an Olympic silver medalist.
Primus admitted that training at the level he did made his championship win that much sweeter.
“It just made me really happy, like getting a call from an Olympic silver medalist, telling me congrats,” Primus said to News12.com. “I want to do the same thing as them, influence young black kids to get into fencing.”
In all, according to the Tim Morehouse Fencing Club official website, Primus and his teammates brought home 19 medals for their club. We think that that was a pretty fantastic way to kick-off their season!
So, what is next for Nazir? Well, the teen said that he is looking towards the 2028 Olympic games in Los Angeles. We have no doubt that his Olympic dreams will come true!
