Beyond the Blade: An Interview with Lior Stofenmacher

Lior Stofenmacher is a 19-year old Spanish fencer who currently represents his country in World Cups as well as representing his own fencing club in national competitions across Spain. Growing up going to a Jewish school, Lior said that he never enjoyed other sports, especially team ones, but was persuaded to take up fencing at his local club after being told that “it’s like Pirates of the Caribbean”. He has since been fencing for 13 years.

Currently, Lior represents local, national and international level for his country having competed at fencing World Cups, of which several are held during the year, and said that the goal is to represent Spain at European and World Championships. Unlike in football or other sports, World Cups in fencing are held throughout the year building up to major World Championships, where a player’s ranking is based on how well a fencer performs at a tournament.

Like so many other Jewish athletes, Lior competed at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in the summer of 2022 as the only fencer representing Spain, where he managed to win a bronze medal. As the only Spanish fencer, Lior said that this added an extra layer of pressure for him, saying that others assumed he was going to win a medal “so I felt like I had to win one”. He was also the only Spanish athlete to win a medal at the games. Despite not having a team to represent, he was able to put together a team of three others before suffering an ACL injury in the semi-final. His success at the games was even more incredible as originally, Lior did not think he would be able to afford to go to the games and needed to attract sponsor money in order to go to Israel.

After his ACL injury ruled him out of competition for 10 months, Lior’s recent return to the sport has been impacted by the ongoing war, saying that he believed “people can’t understand what’s going on in Israel and how I feel”. His sister was living in Israel at the time of the war before needing to return to Spain, whilst kidnapped posters outside his fencing club had been torn down and vandalised with swastikas.

When asked about his aspirations for this year in fencing, Lior said that he intended to qualify and participate in the European championships representing his country at U20 level, recently competing in his first international competition post-injury in Georgia, where he finished 79th out of 182 fencers.