Peter Westbrook, Pathbreaking Olympic Fencer, Dies at 72

Peter Westbrook, a six-time Olympian who was inspired by a 1950s television swashbuckler and by his mother’s clever bribery and who in 1984 became the first African American and Asian American to win a medal in fencing at the Summer Games, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 72.

His death, in a hospital, followed a two-year battle with liver cancer, said Robert Cottingham, a former Olympic teammate and the chairman of a foundation Westbrook began in 1991 to bring fencing and academic opportunities to underprivileged youth.

Westbrook’s pioneering achievements in fencing, a sport historically dominated by white Europeans, drew comparisons to Arthur Ashe’s groundbreaking success and influence in tennis.

“I would suggest there has not been another individual athlete, save perhaps for Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson, who has had the same impact at widening participation in a sport beyond its traditional roots,” Phil Andrews, the chief executive of USA Fencing, the sport’s national governing body, said in an interview on Saturday.

A saber fencer with a graceful and agile style in an event reliant on ballistic thrusting and slashing maneuvers, Westbrook won 13 United States championships and qualified for every U.S. Olympic team from 1976 through 1996.

His seminal bronze medal came in the individual saber competition at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. He also served as flag-bearer for the American team at the closing ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and was inducted into the national fencing Hall of Fame in 1996.