U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : LOS ANGELES--1991 : ATHLETES TO WATCH : Among 3,000 Competitors, Some Will Stand Out

PETER WESTBROOK

Fencing

What Nolan Ryan is to baseball and George Foreman is to boxing, Peter Westbrook is to fencing. At 39, Westbrook is the dean of sabre with 13 national championships and a bronze medal in sabre in the 1984 Olympics, which made him the first American in 24 years to win an Olympic fencing medal.

Like Ryan and Foreman, Westbrook does not appear to be slowing. In the U.S. National championships, he finished fifth in the sabre.

Westbrook began his fencing career to try to stay off the streets of Newark, N.J. He won a fencing scholarship to New York University, where he majored in marketing and economics. Now, Westbrook is a corporate executive in Manhattan and once was a model in GQ magazine.