Paris Olympics: Alexandra Ndolo on path to making Kenyan history

Perhaps the biggest story for Team Kenya at this year’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games, 37-year-old Alexandra Ndolo, the first and only fencer to represent the country, will have followed an unconventional route to the big stage when she lines up for the women’s epee event at the Grand Palais strip starting Saturday 27 July.

Her story is in phases, born in Germany to a Kenyan father, dreamt of representing her fatherland during a memorable trip, to now making history.

Within all that, made a fairly new sport vastly known to Kenyans.

Personal Life

Ndolo, as she now likes to introduce her story, was born in a small German town Bayreuth, in Northern Bavaria, on 13 August 1986, to a Kenyan father - David Ndolo - and a Polish mother - Barbara Sabarth.

As the ideal competitive, flexible child, Ndolo, aged five, picked up a unique sport - modern pentathlon - which is a combination of five sports including fencing (one-touch épée), freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross country running.

It was not until she was 21, and a winner on multiple occasions, that she decided to focus on one sport - the former - which has since attached unprecedented success to her name.

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Route to representing Kenya

Ndolo, who remains attached to her Kenyan roots despite her dad's demise - born in Seme - when she was 10, recalls a trip to Kenya in 2014, when the thoughts of one day representing the country crossed her mind.

What followed for the former German fencer was an effort to establish the Kenya Fencing Federation, which was granted membership of the International Fencing Federation [FIE] in 2019.

Soon enough, she was “breathing a sigh of relief” as she, for the first time, spotted a Kenyan flag at the 2022 World Fencing Championships in Cairo, Egypt.

The flag was not there for her however, but for Kenyan Isaac Wanyoike, who was the first Kenyan participant in the World Championships.

As for Ndolo - who went on to claim silver for Germany that year - the sight meant so much for her, providing evidence that one of her goals had been achieved.

“I had mixed emotions just standing there watching the Kenyan flag flying at the World Championships yet I had won a medal for Germany,” Ndolo told Nation’s Sport On in 2023. “That is when the thoughts of representing Kenya clouded my mind. I felt that having a champion in the system would help inspire a generation to take up the sport in Kenya. For once I felt that it was the right time to make the move.”

The aforementioned move didn’t take long either, as on 9 September 2022, Ndolo, a 2017 European championships silver medalist, acquired a release letter from the German Fencing Federation, that was later approved by the International Fencing Federation on 17 September confirming her request for change of nationality.

It would take till 21 June 2023, days after claiming the African Senior Women's Épée title, when the International Olympic Committee Executive Board finally made the decision to approve her application, giving greenlight towards her representing the country in the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Fencing queen Alexandra Ndolo finally cleared to represent Kenya after German switch

Qualifications to debut Olympics

Having changed nationality, Ndolo, a recognizable name in fencing thanks to her growing catalog while representing Germany (she in addition to her silver medal at the 2022 World Championships finished second and third at the 2017 and 2019 European Championships) emerged as the leading candidate to Paris, by the virtue of being the top-ranked African epee fencer.

It is that position that she needed to hold on to in the qualifying events beginning May 2023 in Cali, Colombia, to finally book her slot at the Summer Games on 22 March at the FIE World Cup in Nanjing, China.

After a failed attempt in 2021, Ndolo enters the stage as a potential medal candidate, and is ranked 10th in the world, while still being the leading African in the sport.

Winning a medal could be one thing, but flying that Kenyan flag at the Olympics will be all that she ever wished.

“I don't have to win an Olympic medal to say that my career was a success or that I was able to inspire people,” Ndolo told Olympics.com in 2022. “I just hope that people that identify with me or my journey will be inspired by the way that I conduct myself on a daily basis.”