Reminiscences of the «Nunca Segundo.
August 31st, 1883 marked the beginning of an exceptional journey that led its protagonist, the then emerging Havana native Ramon Fonst Segundo, to achieve glory, become a national pride and become a world icon of fencing.
August 31st, 1883 marked the beginning of an exceptional journey that led its protagonist, the then emerging Havana native Ramon Fonst Segundo, to achieve glory, become a source of national pride and become a world icon in fencing.
He was barely 17 years old when, at the 1900 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, he became the first Latin American to win an Olympic medal and, four years later, at the Third Games in St. Louis, United States, he won the individual titles in foil and epee.
His cyclopean expertise was recognized by the American newspapers and the National Fencing Federation, which credited him as «out of class», after defeating more than a hundred opponents in the 1915 World Exposition in San Francisco, where he won the titles in saber, foil and epee and, the Federation itself, granted him a well-deserved place in the Antillean team.
At 41 years of age, he returned to the Paris Olympic competition, reaching the quarter finals, led the three individual events of the first Central American Games in Mexico City in 1926 and, at 47 years of age, won undefeated in foil and epee in a competition held in the Havana capital.
Likewise, the last great result of his fruitful sporting career was obtained in the IV Central American and Caribbean Games that, in 1938, hosted the Panamanian city and in which he won the gold and silver medals as a member of the epee and foil teams, respectively.
Complications due to a diabetic coma took away the septuagenarian existence of «El Zurdo» or «Nunca Segundo» on the fateful September 10, 1959, when the largest of the Antilles lost one of its main sports references and consequently became the best and most legendary fencer of all times in the Island.
In recognition of his actions, he was named Knight of the French Legion of Honor and received the Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the Orders of Military Merit and Sports Merit. Likewise, in his honor were created the «Ramón Fonst» Order of Merit for Fencing, a multipurpose hall of the same name in his hometown and the Amateur Fencing Federation of Cuba, as well as the «Ramón Fonst in Memóriam» International Tournaments that, since 1966, have been held in the nation.
The imprint of the man who is on the list of the 100 best athletes in Cuban sports and Olympic history continues to inspire fencers from all over the world, who remember his manifest mastery, his eminent fluency and his stubborn determination in the pursuit of excellence.
Written by Yadiel Barbón.
