MEPSTEAD Marcus

Personal Information

Residence London, ENG

Occupation Athlete

Languages English

Higher education Economics, Geography, Politics - London School of Economics: England

License number 11051990000

Club

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Sport Specific Information

When and where did you begin this sport? He began fencing at age nine at the Hall School in London, England.

Why this sport? His mother wanted him to spend more time out of the house, so he took up the sport as an after-school activity. He was walking past his school's sports hall and saw others fencing so he asked his mother if he could try the sport. "Nobody in my family is involved in fencing. I've got two brothers and my mum just chucked us into it. It was reason for us to be out of the house and not messing it up."

Club / Team Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club: New York, NY, USA

Name of coach Dan Kellner [club], USA

Handedness Right

General Interest

Injuries In July 2019 he sustained a cut on his hand that required stitches. He recovered to win a silver medal at the 2019 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in the same month. (bbc.co.uk, 20 Jul 2019)

Other information MOVE TO THE UNITED STATES
After British Fencing lost its funding in 2017, he began a personal training business and moved to New York, NY, United States of America, to work with coach Dan Kellner at the Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club. "At the end of 2016 we were getting ready for a new season but the performance manager told us our funding was getting cut. I was pretty disheartened. When it was taken away, I knew how hard it was going to be. I decided on America, and I didn't know how I was going to afford it, I didn't want it to be a short-term thing, I really wanted to commit for the next three years." He says he initially struggled financially after the move, before he secured funding following his silver medal at the 2019 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. "I thought I'd raised enough money but I hadn't. It was just so expensive here and with the competitions. The only thing keeping me afloat was the fencing club. Every time I went into training it was my life jacket. I could dive into learning everything with my new coach and put it into practice, really fall in love again with my sport and create that passion." (teamgb.com, 21 May 2021; bbc.co.uk, 21 May 2021; eurosport.co.uk, 25 May 2021)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
In December 2023 he became a member of the British Elite Athletes Association's Athlete Advisory Forum. He has also served as an ambassador for the Trees for the Future charity, and in 2023 he won the Sustainable Travel award at the International Olympic Committee [IOC] Climate Action Awards along with a 24,000 USD grant for Trees for the Future. "I wanted to support them. What they do is they basically manage unsustainable land use. They help farmers in sub-Saharan and east Africa, on managing their land and turning it from pretty unproductive and low-producing into a forest garden." (LinkedIn profile, 23 Apr 2024; Instagram profile, 22 Apr 2024, 22 Apr 2023; britishfencing.com, 29 Sep 2023, 01 Jul 2021; add-victor.com, 22 Jun 2021)