Lauren Scruggs (fencer)

Scruggs grew up in Queens, New York.^[4] She was inspired to start fencing as a 6-year-old, after her older brother joined a fencing club in Brooklyn.^[5][6] She attended Packer Collegiate Institute, graduating in 2021.^[7] Her older brother Nolen fenced at Columbia University.^[8]

She graduated from Harvard University in 2025 with a degree in philosophy.^[9][10]

Scruggs is a two-time champion in the Junior World Fencing Championships, winning individual gold medals in 2019 and 2022 as well as other individual and team awards in 2018, 2021, and 2023.^[11] In 2023, she earned an individual gold medal at the NCAA Fencing Championships in Durham, North Carolina, and contributed to a fourth-place team finish for Harvard.^[12] In June 2023, she took bronze at the Pan American Fencing Championships in Lima.^[13]

On March 17, 2024, Scruggs qualified for the Paris Olympic Games by earning bronze at the Absolute Fencing Gear FIE Grand Prix in Washington, D.C.

At the Games, she won the silver medal in the women's foil event, defeating Italian fencer Arianna Errigo and Canadian fencer Eleanor Harvey, among others, before losing 15–6 in the final to fellow American Lee Kiefer.^[14][15] This made Scruggs the first Black American woman to win an individual fencing medal at the Olympics.^[16] She also won a gold medal in the team competition.

Scruggs is openly lesbian and currently dating a Harvard classmate.^[5] She is involved with the Peter Westbrook Foundation, which offers fencing lessons to children and teens who are members of underrepresented groups.^[13] By qualifying for the Paris Olympics, she became the 17th Olympian produced by this foundation.