Peter Westbrook, a six-time Olympian who was inspired by a 1950s television swashbuckler and by his mother’s clever bribery and who in 1984 became the first African American and Asian American to win a medal in fencing at the Summer Games, died Friday in the New York City borough of Manhattan. He was 72.
His death, in a hospital, followed a two-year battle with liver cancer, said Robert Cottingham, a former Olympic teammate and the chair of a foundation Westbrook began in 1991 to bring fencing and academic opportunities to underprivileged youths.
Westbrook’s pioneering achievements in fencing, a sport historically dominated by white Europeans, drew comparisons to Arthur Ashe’s groundbreaking success and influence in tennis.
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