Tiger with a blade

For close to 30 years, Andrea Magro has been a fencing coach. His keen eye for talent is impeccable. The Italian master guided Valentina Vezzali to six Olympic gold medals in team and individual foil from 1996 to 2012. Magro, 61, also led Vezzali to 16 world championships in the same two events from 1995 to 2015. Aside from coaching the Italian fencing team, Magro trained Japanese, Kuwait and American athletes.

In 2019, Magro was contracted to coach two-time US Olympian Nzingha Prescod and prepare her for the Tokyo Games.  But after a year, Prescod underwent hip replacement surgery and announced her retirement. Magro was in New York when Prescod decided to call it a career and recalled he was approached by Filipina fencer Maxine Esteban’s mother to inquire about his availability during a competition in Kuwait two years before. Magro was then with the Kuwait national team and on the way to New York to work with Prescod.

“I’ll never forget watching Max,” said Magro. “She was like a tiger out there and very agile.” When Prescod retired, Magro found himself free to explore a new frontier and Esteban came to mind. Esteban’s mother had kept in contact with Magro from when they first met, leaving the door open for a link in the future. Early in 2020, Magro and Esteban began working together in Manila then came the pandemic.

“We worked only for a month then coach Andrea had to go back to Italy for a year because of the pandemic,” said Esteban, an Ateneo management engineering graduate now taking an online course for a University of Pennsylvania communications degree. “We resumed in July 2021 when I traveled to train in Como, Italy.” With Magro at her side, Esteban toured the world circuit, picking up a silver in Uzbekistan, bronze in Italy and registering impressive finishes in Germany and the Czech Republic to boost her world ranking to No. 62. At the World Championships in Cairo last July, she suffered an ACL tear in her left knee. Esteban had surgery in Australia and is now slowly back to training after months of rehab. Inactivity has dropped her world ranking to No. 76, still the highest among Filipina fencers. Magro remains her full-time coach and supervises her return to form. The plan is to set up training camp in Italy early next year and get ready for the Olympic qualifiers.

Esteban, 22, is no stranger to injury. In 2015, she severed tendons and nerves in her right hand in a freak accident with glass shards ripping her skin. Esteban had two surgeries to repair the damage and to this day, is unable to make a close fist and a firm grip. Despite the handicap, she continues to fence, play the violin and produce remarkable oil paintings.

Curiously, fencing wasn’t Esteban’s first sport. She competed in figure skating locally and internationally until 11 when the SM Megamall ice rink closed down. Esteban became fascinated by fencing after watching the movie “Parent Trap” where there were scenes of sword-fighting. She focused on the sport and in UAAP Season 81, was Rookie of the Year and MVP as an Ateneo fencer, leading the Lady Eagles to the throne to end UE’s 11-year reign. Esteban went on to take the bronze in team foil at the 2019 SEA Games and silver in the same event in Hanoi this year. With Magro as her dedicated coach, Esteban is primed to go a long way in her fencing journey.