Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND SPORTS won out. "I got all the other sports out of my system in middle school," he said. "I was definitely into lacrosse — I had a passion for it — but ultimately I was already pretty far down the road with fencing, already traveling to World Cups. I didn't feel like it was some- thing I could give up that easily." Quitting those other activities in pursuit of fencing meant spending a lot more time around his sisters. Axel laughs when looking back on their years of training together, apprecia- tive of the time he was able to spend around his siblings but joking their battles weren't always smooth sailing. "We were closer probably than your average brother and sister," he said. "Sometimes we were too close because we'd be with each other at practice every day or back at the house. We'd get into silly fights. We get along really well now, though." One thing the trio does all have in common is their fencing weapon of choice — foil. The sport consists pri- marily of three weapons: foil, epee and sabre. Each is different with a unique set of competition rules. Foil can target the torso (including the back), neck and groin, but not the arms or legs. Sabre on the other hand can target the entire body above the waist, while every body part is vulner- able in epee. Axel isn't completely certain how and his sisters he landed on foil out of the three, although he has a good guess. "Dad fenced foil in college, so he was probably biased towards that weapon," he said. "My father is defi- nitely the reason why we've been able to pursue fencing at such a high level. "We just started with foil and stuck with it." Lee actually won't join Axel this year in South Bend. The three-time NCAA champion is taking time off from school to prepare for the 2016 Sum- mer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as to study for the MCAT, the medical school admission exam. His sister aside, the youngest Kiefer is comfortable with his choice, and has used the fall semester to adjust to the rigors of Notre Dame's academic work and the often-grinding travel schedule of an Irish student-athlete. He is starting with a major in science and pre-med, hoping to eventually go to medical school and become a doctor. And he plans to win some fencing matches along the way. "I definitely made the right deci- sion picking Notre Dame," the fresh- man said. "Right now, I'm working on becoming more well balanced in all aspects of the game, including offense, defense and pressuring." He also has clear goals for his fenc- ing career at Notre Dame. "I'd love for our team to win NCAAs," Kiefer explained. "That's always the goal. As far as the inter- national circuit, I want to make the Junior World Team and hopefully I'll be able to place at World Champion- ships." Notre Dame's fencing team resumes competition at the Division 1/Junior NAC Jan. 8-11 in St. Louis. ✦