A five-time Olympic team member. Michael Marx (Born July 7, 1958) has had a long and successful career in fencing. Michael has won a record eight national championships in foil.
Marx was raised in a fencing family in Portland, his brother Robert has also competed in the Olympics for team USA and his mother, Colleen Olney, is considered the “mother” of fencing in Oregon.
Marx is also a five-time USOC Athlete of the Year and a silver medal winner at the World University Games in 1985, the highest finish ever for a U.S. team member. He served as vice president of the U.S. Fencing Association from 1992 to 1996. In 1993, Marx earned his Master of Arms degree in Poland.
He qualified for Olympic teams in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996, missing only the 1980 games in Moscow due to the US boycott and is the only American in over 70 years to qualify for the Olympics in both epee and foil.
He is a staff member of the USFA Coaches College, coaching upper level classes, writing manuals and teaching. Currently, Michael has served as the national women’s epee coach. His students won 12 of the 24 national championships for women’s epee. His athletes have competed for Olympic teams in both epee and foil.
Michael Marx has been enshrined in the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame. He is the Fencing Master at the Northwest Fencing Center in Beaverton and the Marx Fencing Academy in Massachusetts.