Peter Westbrook

Fencing

After slashing his way out of life in a Newark, N.J., housing project, world-class saber fencer Peter Westbrook faces one of the biggest challenges of his life as he enters his sixth - and perhaps last - Olympics.

He must fence without two of the most important people in his life. Westbrook’s coach, Csaba Elthes, suffered a fatal stroke at age 83 last November. His mother, Mariko Westbrook, was murdered by a fellow traveler on a city bus in Newark two years ago.

Westbrook, 44, had to choose between the Olympics and being at the trial of the woman accused of murdering his mother. Fannie Simmons, a nurse’s aide, was scheduled to go to trial on July 15. The trial was later postponed.

“I would rather honor my mother by going to the Games,” he said.

Mariko Westbrook, a Japanese woman who was 66 when she died, introduced her son to fencing with hopes it would keep him off the streets. He began at 16 and, since then, has won 13 national titles in saber and an Olympic bronze medal. And through it all, Mariko was his biggest fan.

“You know my son?” she would ask of strangers at Montreal. “He’s an Olympian.”

That same tendency to talk to anybody set the stage for Mariko’s death nearly two decades later.

Witnesses on the Newark bus say Fannie Simmons erupted when Mariko offered advice to her. Simmons, traveling with a little girl who was swathed in woolen scarves up to her eyes, repeatedly punched and kicked Mariko after she suggested removing the scarves from the little girl’s face.

After being struck a dozen or so times, Mariko attempted to flee. But, Simmons gave one final kick that sent Mariko through the front door of the bus. Her head slammed against the curb, fracturing her skull.

Even before her death, Peter recognized how important his mother’s guidance was by forming the Peter Westbrook Foundation in 1991, hoping to introduce inner-city youth to fencing.