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Ben Bratton Becomes First African American to Win Gold Medal at World Fencing Championship



Ben Bratton, a three-time fencing all-American, recently became the first African American and youngest American to win a team gold medal at the 2012 World Fencing Championship in Kiev, Ukraine on April 14.

Bratton and teammates Seth Kelsey, Soren Thompson and Cody Mattern defeated six-time reigning World Champions from France 44 to 37, according to eurweb.com.

Bratton and the U.S. Men’s Epee Fencing team made history as the first American team to ever win the Gold Medal in the history of the sport.

Bratton, 26, hails from Queens, NY and began fencing at age 11 at the Peter Westbrook Foundation, which teaches fencing to inner city youth.

“It’s a great feeling to be at the forefront of something like that,” Bratton said in an interview with eurweb.com. “…It’s a great symbol of progression and how far we’ve come that someone like me can break it and race with it and impede my success.”

Bratton says it is “fine” to be compared to other great African American trailblazers, but he still has “too much work to do to kind of get caught up in that.”

It’s way to too soon, he added.

Watch Ben Bratton story’s below.

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