Philippe Bennett, has been a long standing and devoted member of Fencers Club.
At the age of 15, Philippe joined Fencers Club and was coached by the legendary Michel Alaux. Philippe was quickly successful placing 2nd in the first Junior Olympics in 1972, winning several Met Division championships, making three NCAA finals, earning All-American and All-Ivy honors, placing 2nd at the 1975 ECAC's, and Captaining the 1976 Harvard fencing team.Philippe paused competitive fencing during graduate and law schools and resumed competition in the early 1980's coached by Semyon Pinkasov and later Simon Gershon -two of FC's top national foil coaches. Philippe was on Fencers Club's 1987 National Championships Foil Gold medal team as well as on several of the FC's bronze medal foil teams, competed and medaled in several U.S. Olympic Festivals during the '80s and in the first Mexican Olympic Festival, and represented the U.S. in numerous foil World Cups.
In 1993, he competed for the U.S. in his first World Maccabiah Games winning two silver medals as a member of the foil and sabre teams. Philippe then retired from competition only to return in 2008 to compete in the veteran and masters divisions. Between 2009 and 2019 Philippe has been a 10-time medalist at the Veteran National Championships, medaled at the 2013 World Maccabiah Games masters division, won a Veteran North American Cup in 2018, and has been on 5 U.S. World Championship Veteran foil teams and on 3 Pan American Veteran teams.
Philippe is not only a lifelong fencer, but he has also served as the Met Division Chairman (1992-1996), has been Fencing Chair of the 16th, 19th and the upcoming 21st Maccabiah Games, and has co-produced a fencing documentary celebrating Harvard's 125 year anniversary "One For All- the Enduring Story of Harvard Fencing".
Philippe is the founder of Radical Fencing and a named inventor on Radical's state of the art fencing floor that we are all enjoying today at FC.
Under his leadership as Chairman of Fencers Club, FC successfully relocated to our current space in the heart of Manhattan while dealing with restrictions due to the COVID pandemic. It is a testament to his skill and resolve to make our club the best it can be.
