Fencer Speaks on Olympics Day

Palisades Elementary students had quite a surprise in store for them last Thursday morning at the school’s annual Olympics Day ceremony. Former United States Olympic fencer Carl Borack was the guest speaker at the event, telling his attentive young audience what it takes to succeed in his sport. Borack knows what the Olympics are all about, having marched in five Olympic and five Pan American Games opening ceremonies. “I love the Olympics,” he said. “Since 1972 I’ve attended every Summer Games except for Moscow in 1980 [which the U.S. boycotted]. It’s the most unique event in the world.” Borack was a captain of the U.S. Olympic fencing team in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000, served as a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Public Relations Committee and was president of the International Fencing Commission from 2004-08. After earning a gold medal with the 1971 foil team in the Pan American Games, Borack made the 1972 Olympic team in foil. “It was a terrible Olympics because I had two friends killed on the Israel team,” Borack recalled. (Arab commandos killed two Israeli athletes and seized nine others from the Olympic Village. The next day the remaining nine were killed in a shootout between terrorists and West German police, causing the Games to be suspended for 24 hours. “I didn’t like the politics,” Borack said. “In my opinion it was treated as a political incident, rather than a terrorist attack.” Borack moved with his family from New York to Los Angeles when he was in fourth grade and his parents instantly signed him up for an after-school program at the Westside Jewish Community Center. On Mondays he played basketball, on Tuesdays he played football, on Wednesdays he went swimming, on Thursdays he danced and on Fridays he fenced. “I fell in love with the sport [fencing],” Borack said, but after that first year he wouldn’t pick up a foil for another five years. After living in the Carthay Circle for a year he and his family moved to Beverly Hills. “As a freshman, I played football, but was a mediocre player,’ Borack said. “I was also running track. The smartest kid in my class Bob Post said, ‘Let’s go back to fencing.'” Borack continued to play school sports, making the basketball team as a junior. That same year he went to the 1965 Junior World Championships in fencing. “I saw international fencing and beautiful women,” Borack said, who thereafter realized fencing was his passion. “From my senior year on I knew I wanted to make the Olympic team.” Although he attended Cal State Northridge, Borack’s fencing coach was from UCLA, so Borack competed outside of college and, in 1967, represented the U.S. in the Pan American games as one of four members on the gold medal-winning epee team. The next year he served as an alternate for the Olympic team. In 1968, he was the U.S. National Champion in foil and the following year at the Maccabiah Games in Israel he took gold in the sabre. Borack, who lives in Santa Monica, is one of few fencers equally adept with each of the three types of swords: foil, sabre and epee. “Most fencers don’t compete in all three events,” he said. “It would be like competing in racquetball, squash and tennis.” In order to be a good fencer, Barack explained, it takes brains, strong legs, good reflexes, hours of coaching and desire: “This game is like physical chess. You have to want it.” Borack worked hard to make sabre fencing a woman’s event and in the 2000 Games in Athens, Greece, his efforts paid off as American women took first and third. “Our women’s sabre fencers are among the best in the world,” he said. “Even though we haven’t reached the Italians or French, we have become a powerhouse in the men’s division as well.” Borack is also a film producer, having produced “The Big Fix” (starring his childhood friend Richard Dreyfuss) as well as family movies, including “Shiloh,” “Shiloh Season” and “Saving Shiloh.” His film “The Final Season” premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. “My last five films have been family movies with impeccable values,” he said. Opening Ceremonies were at 8:30 a.m. on the blacktop, during which kids of various ages and grade levels (K through 5) participated in a “Parade of Nations” and recited the Olympian creed. After a $1,000 check was donated to the Special Olympics, Borack gave his speech and it was time for the Games to begin. Students flooded to the playground to participate in a variety of events, including art, team building, the 4 x 100 relay, GaGa (a form of dodgeball), Hippity Hop, handball, kickball, shot put and the dreaded ‘obstacle course.’