PARIS — Young couples go through stretches like this. Work gets busy and life gets hectic, there isn’t enough time to spend together.
It helps that Gerek Meinhardt and his wife, Lee Kiefer, have similar jobs, so they understand the pressures.
“I think we both give each other grace,” Meinhardt says.
As U.S. fencers expected to contend for medals over the next two days at the 2024 Paris Olympics, they must practice on different schedules, compete on different days and even sleep in separate buildings at the Olympic village.
Though their situation is unusual — two world-class athletes in the same household — it is not uncommon. Over the last century, more than a thousand couples have participated in the same Summer or Winter Games, according to statistics compiled by sports historian Bill Mallon.
Many have played the same sport for the same country. Others have competed in different events under different flags.
Dozens have won gold within days of each other, but exact numbers are hard to determine because early records do not indicate if they were married before or after their joint appearance on the world’s biggest athletic stage.
This much seems certain — the lineage dates back to French tennis players Max and Marie Decugis, who married a year before a special 1906 version of the Games in Athens. More recent examples include sprinter Andre De Grasse of Canada and hurdler Nia Ali of the U.S. and decathlete Ashton Eaton of the U.S. and pentathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton of Canada.
At the 1992 Albertville Games, Russian ice dancers Marina Klimova and Sergey Ponomarenko credited their relationship with enhancing a romantic on-ice performance that won gold.
“When we found this program, we knew we would do it well because we love each other,” Ponomarenko said. “I don’t know how persons who are not married solve this problem.”
Kiefer expresses a similar sentiment when she calls her husband “my secret weapon.”
Paris is their fourth Games together — he competed in one before her — and potentially their last. Now in their early 30s, both are third-year med students at the University of Kentucky who have put their studies on hold but will soon return to school.
Like a lot of elite athletes, they met while competing in the junior ranks, bumping into each other at tournaments and training camps. She was from Kentucky and he was from San Francisco. It wasn’t until the 2012 London Olympics that they spent time together.
It turned out that both came from strict but loving Asian American families. Both read fantasy books and wanted to pursue medicine. Both specialized in foil, one of fencing’s three disciplines.
“I started crushing on Gerek,” she recalls. “Yeah, it was me, I made the first move.”
By the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games they were a serious couple. By 2019, they were married. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, their relationship paid unexpected dividends.
While other fencers were left stranded, unable to practice at their clubs, Meinhardt and Kiefer trained daily in the basement. Kiefer’s brother and his girlfriend joined in.
“We had a little group,” Kiefer said. “We played a lot of fencing games, getting creative, to help keep us fresh.”
That might explain her success at the Tokyo Games in 2021, where she upset defending champion Inna Deriglazova of Russia for the gold. Meinhardt yelled himself hoarse in the stands, encouraging her between bouts.
They had only a few minutes to celebrate her victory because Meinhardt was scheduled to compete the next morning and recalls having to “jump on the bus back to the village … she was basically pushing me out the door to make sure I got rested.”
As the top seed, he did not fare so well, losing in the round of 32, though he did bounce back to win bronze in the team event. The bittersweet nature of those Olympics — her joy, his disappointment — underscores one of the challenges that Olympic couples face.
Before tournaments, with both athletes on edge, things sometimes get tense around the house. Then comes the competition where Meinhardt and Kiefer find it tougher to watch their spouse than it is to fence themselves.
“We want each other to win so badly,” he said. “Having seen how much work we both put into it, the things we’ve gone through to get there, it’s stressful.”
This week in Paris, amid all the preparations, they have stolen a few moments to eat breakfast together and visit with relatives who made the trip. Some Olympics offer married housing but not this one, so each night they head their separate ways.
On Sunday, they will fall into a familiar pattern as the top-ranked Kiefer fences and her husband watches. On Monday, when the 12th-ranked Meinhardt competes, their roles flip-flop.
“Because of him, I think I’m more of a dynamic fencer and try to be creative,” she said. “And I have taught him how to be scrappy and dirty.”
Fencing at the historic Grand Palais figures to get pretty loud, what with the clatter of blades and referees barking commands, the rumble of the crowd echoing off vaulted glass ceilings. Meinhardt and Kiefer will have to listen hard for that particular voice in the crowd.
The one shouting from the stands, maybe giving a few technical points, probably just offering encouragement.
“Just hearing that person,” Meinhardt says. “We definitely lean on each other.”
