Sport: Fencing
Age: 50
Hometown: Edmonton Alberta

Medal Potential: Unlikely- Women’s Foil

Luan Jujie is a renown fencer though not so in Canada. In 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, she won Gold for China, its first fencing medal ever. For that feat, she is considered to be one of the top 50 athlete of the past 50 years in China.

She never duplicated that great success and in time she emigrated to Canada and started a fencing school in Edmonton Alberta. Becoming a Canadian citizen, she represented Canada at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney though she never got past the first round.

So she now returns to the land of her birth with a higher profile in China than any other of her fellow Canadians and accordingly be given much respect and honor there. Yet, it is not expected that she win a medal in her event. Rather, it is more of a recognition in Canada of what she has done for the sport of fencing in Canada. As a sport in Canada, fencing has never received much support or visibility but in recent years, there has been a determined effort by devotees of the sport to provide the training resources for up and coming fencers. Jujie school in Edmonton helps support that effort.

This year’s Olympics will see one of the largest group of fencers Canada will ever send to the Olympics. No member of the team is expected to win a medal but it is a base from which future teams will be built all because of devoted teachers like Luan Jujie.