Nzingha Prescod

A two-time Olympian and Brooklyn native, Prescod became the first African-American woman to win an individual medal at the Senior World Championships when she took bronze in 2015.

Prescod hails from the well-regarded Peter Westbrook Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing the art of fencing to the inner-city youth of New York, where she has been fencing since she was nine years old. Prescod displayed an extraordinary talent for the sport at a very young age, winning her first Youth 10 national competition in 2003. By the age of 15, Prescod was ranked in the top five of the Senior division, among the nation’s elite and Olympic women’s foilists. In the same year, 2008, Prescod won her first Cadet (under-17) World Championship and followed up the next year with her second World Championship title. In 2011, she continued her dominance on the world stage with another World Championship win in the Junior (under-20) category. That same year, Prescod was also featured in Essence magazine as part of the Work & Wealth Power List, with First Lady Michelle Obama gracing the cover. Prescod has since been featured in national and international media, most recently being included in the 2016 ESPN Body Issue.

Prescod qualified for the London Olympic Games at just 19 and returned to the pinnacle of fencing competition in Rio at 23 where she finished 11th.