Who we are
Our last names Kiefer and Meinhardt make up the “K” and “M” in KM Fencing, a business we started to share our love for the sport. We have been married since 2019, currently live in Lexington, KY, and are often on the road for competitions, clinics, and other events.
Lee Kiefer
4x Olympian | 3x Gold Medalist
Lee first picked up a foil at 7-years-old and has spent the majority of her career training in Lexington, Kentucky, with Coach Amgad Khazbak at Bluegrass Fencers’ Club.
At 16-years-old, Lee made her way into the history books when she medaled at the Cadet, Junior, and Senior World Championships in the same season. She continued to have success through college where she won 4 individual NCAA Championship titles with the University of Notre Dame.
Lee did not anticipate her career would be so long and illustrious, but at 30-years-old, her resume now includes holding the #1 World Ranking three consecutive years and being a member of four Olympic teams for Team USA: London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016, Tokyo 2021, and Paris 2024. She won the first foil gold medal for her country in 2021, and recently in Paris, she not only defended her individual title but also brought home the gold with her team, becoming the first Olympic champion team in USA Fencing history.
Since high school, Lee has been on a science trajectory. She graduated from the MSTC program at Paul Laurence Dunbar in 2012 before matriculating as a science preprofessional major at Notre Dame. In 2017, she began the next phase of her education at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Because life is exciting and unpredictable, Lee put her MD candidacy on hold to pursue her fencing aspirations. Following the Paris 2024 Olympics, Lee and Gerek made the difficult decision to continue fencing and explore opportunities outside of medicine rather than return to school.
Gerek Meinhardt, MBA
5x Olympian | 2x Bronze Medalist
Gerek grew up in San Francisco, California, and began fencing when he was 9-years-old with Coach Greg Massialas at the Massialas Foundation. He went to college at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned both his BBA and MBA. At Notre Dame, he was a four-time First Team All-American and won two individual NCAA titles.
Gerek became the youngest US fencer to ever qualify for an Olympics as a 17-year-old at the 2008 Beijing Games. In 2010, he was the first American man to win a Senior World Championships medal. He became the first men’s foil fencer in US history to attain the number one world ranking in 2013. He has competed in every Senior World Championships and Olympics since 2008, most recently competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics. He has a record seven Senior World Championship medals and two Olympic bronze medals.
After working in the business world for a few years, an interest in healthcare led him to enroll in medical school at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine where he completed two years before taking a leave of absence to train for the Paris 2024 Olympics with Lee. Following the Games, they went through a process of envisioning what they would like their joint future to look like and ultimately decided to continue fencing and pursue opportunities outside of medicine.
