A dream forged in Lagos, polished in Manhattan
For 17-year-old Brou, fencing began not with a medal or a mentor, but a movie.
“It was that kind of love for sword fighting and also watching the movie Pirates of the Caribbean that made me inspired to do fencing,” Brou told Olympics.com earlier this year.
That spark led him to a fencing club the very next day. It didn’t take long for Brou to go from cardboard swords to global podiums. By 16, he had already earned Nigeria’s first-ever medal at an international fencing event, a silver at the 2024 World Tournoi Satellite Cup in Reykjavik.
Currently ranked 74th in the senior world sabre standings and 23rd among juniors, Brou is now training with elite U.S. national team fencers at the Scarsdale Fencing Center and The Peter Westbrook Foundation in Manhattan.
Brou called it “extra special” to have his coach, Georgian Olympic fencer Archil Lortkipanidze, joining him in Tbilisi for his first senior World Championships, in a video shared on his social media.
“It’s my first [senior] World Championships ever, so I look to build upon my results after getting a bronze medal at the Junior Zone Championships,” Brou said in the same video.
With eyes set on LA28, Brou is chasing his Olympic dream while also building the infrastructure to help others follow. Through his Fencing Diaspora Foundation, he’s committed to developing fencing across sub-Saharan Africa.
“I’m very optimistic about the future of fencing in Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa,” he said. “So just being able to take our continent and put it on the world’s biggest stage, the Olympic Games, for fencing would be an amazing opportunity that would make me very proud.”