ABOUT ME
My Story
On March 23rd, 1993, my mom and dad gave birth to me in Zurich, Switzerland. My parents named me after the main character of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (which is actually a little tom boy girl who has some real similarities to myself). My dad knew as early as 16 years old that he wanted to give his first daughter the name “Scout”. If you know the book and the main character, you can imagine that it was not hard to convince my mother of giving me the name Scout. My two other "middle names" are the native american based Shawnee and the name of a daughter of a Florida acquaintance of my parents, Shalon.
Since I was born, my parents have tried to encourage me to do sports. It started very early with parent-child gymnastics, ballet, karate and artistic gymnastics. I also had a phase where I tried out vaulting and ice skating. Besides that, I loved to play soccer (I was a huge “Die Wilden Kerle” fan).
When I was six years old, I discovered fencing through a school event. Even though I told my parents at the beginning that I did not want to do competitions, I started pretty soon with fencing as a competitive sport.
Over the years this commitment meant a lot of training, sports school, sports college, and competitions on almost every weekend. I believe that this life period shaped me into a strong young woman, who knows how to win but also how to lose, which is probably the even more important part. I would never change the way I’ve grown up.
​
Right from the start I was trained by a true Maître (engl. Master of Fencing). He was an extremely strict and focused old school military guy. He barely complimented me on anything. I could win tournaments and all he said was “good”, which was probably already too much said for him. When I came to the first training session at the age of six, the first thing he said to me was “grab a jumping rope and go rope jumping in the corner”. I didn’t even hear a “hello, welcome to your first fencing class”, but as it seems it didn't bother me. I guess I was being groomed into someone with a warrior heart who doesn't need a lot of affection and attention. But at least at the beginning, this probably was also one of the reasons of my low self-confidence at the time. That day was the start of a physically and mentally intensive and hard sports career in fencing - and thousands of hours of rope jumping. :-)
At the age of 13 I made my way into the youth national team. At 14 I switched from public school to a gymnasium for artists and sport athletes. In the same period my parents split up. This phase was probably one of the toughest phases in my life so far. Being separated from my two sisters (because I’ve chosen to stay with my dad), new school, new people, hard training sessions, a lot of studying and traveling had a hard impact on me. For five years my life consisted of travelling from school to training during the weekdays and travelling to and competing at national and international competitions from Friday to Sunday – and all over again, every single week. During this time, I was supported by my dad. He dedicated most of his time, besides his normal work, to my busy competition schedule, planning travel/flights and accommodations, drove and accompanied me to almost every competition during those years, which is why I am very thankful to him.
Click here for more fencing impressions
I won and lost a lot of fights/competitions and I learned focus and discipline on sometimes almost unimaginable levels. I always did more than anyone else. I trained more, I was stricter with my food intake and at the same time I studied for school like a maniac. I always had exceptionally good school grades. In all aspects of life, I was extremely hard on myself, probably sometimes too hard. I wanted to be better every day and better than anyone else. I wanted to make my family proud, which meant extra hours of memorizing techniques, drills, strength & conditioning training and attending a special speed training.
​
For a long time, I never questioned my way of life. I dedicated my whole being to this sport until I reached a burnout. I started to get mental problems, eating disorder and my menstruation stopped for over a year. I started being unhappy with myself, my body and my performances. As if that wasn't already enough, my body screamed for a break by having more and more injuries, like fatigue fractures on both of my feet and problems with my ligaments. On top of all this came the frustration of unfair and sometimes nepotistic treatment of the athletes in the national team of Switzerland.