Eleanor Harvey, Vegan Since 12, Wins Canada's First-Ever Olympic Fencing Medal

Vegan foil fencer Eleanor Harvey has won Canada's first-ever Olympic fencing medal, beating Italy's Alice Volpi 15-12 in the bronze medal bout of the women's individual foil at the Grand Palais in Paris on Sunday, July 28.

The 29-year-old from Hamilton, Ontario came into the tournament as the No. 12 seed. She lost her semi-final 15-9 to American Lauren Scruggs, then went straight at the No. 3-seeded Italian, racing into a 6-1 lead. Volpi hit back with six touches in a row to level it at 10-10, but Harvey pulled clear again and dropped to her knees when the final touch was confirmed, reports The Canadian Press.

Between the semi-final and the medal bout she ate sour candies and plain pasta and talked it through with her coaches.

I feel like when I was in the semifinal … I was more scared. And then, after talking to my team and my coaches and everything, they were like, ‘You're fighting for a medal. If you're going to lose, at least go out fighting.’ And so that resonated with me.

Paris is Harvey's third Games after seventh place in Rio and fifth in the team event in Tokyo. Her mother, Lise Graydon, once sold her house to fund her daughter's competitions, and she was in the crowd to watch history being made.

Harvey went vegan at 12, the same year she took up fencing, and has competed on plants ever since, winning the NCAA title in 2016 along the way. Fencing Canada's own athlete profile calls her "the vegan yogi". She told Ohio State's student paper The Lantern that the diet helps rather than holds her back: “It just shows that you don’t need meat to be a successful athlete. When I’m at a competition I’m never the one that’s more tired, it’s usually the other person.”

It's been a big weekend for plant-powered Olympians. Just yesterday vegan fencer Vivian Kong won épée gold for Hong Kong, and vegan cyclist Anna Henderson took Team GB's first silver of the Games. They follow in the footsteps of Kendrick Farris, the only male US weightlifter at Rio 2016, and the vegan Olympian who won gold and rescued a dog in 2018.

No meat, no problem.