OLYMPIC FENCER WON'T BE FOILED : TWELVE YEARS OF HARD WORK PAY OFF FOR VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANT.

Byline: Siobhan Morrissey Cox News Service

Lan Le's name means ``innocent sunflower'' in Vietnamese, but she has a killer instinct when it comes to fencing. Her burning desire to become an Olympian has pushed her for more than a decade.

Maestro Arkady Burdan knows firsthand how determined Le can be; he coached her for six years. For two of those years, Burdan didn't even have a club.

``We worked in driveways, tennis courts when (it was) 110 degrees,'' Burdan said. ``She practiced every day. A few times I gave lessons in grass in backyards.''

All that practice paid off. The United States Fencing Association named Le, 32, to the U.S. women's Olympic epee team last month. She is competing in foil and epee at the National Championships in Cincinnati.

A native of Vietnam, Le's family fled to Atlanta just after the fall of Saigon in 1975, when she was 11.

Le's mother, Hang Pham Le, landed an administrative job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortly after arriving here.

``Me and my husband worked, but we did not have enough money to raise the children,'' said Mrs. Le, who has six daughters and three sons.

Le says her mother is a workaholic, a trait that seems to run in the family.

``But I know when it's Miller time,'' Le said, laughing. ``My mom doesn't know when to quit. She works during Christmas.''

To supplement her income at the CDC, Mrs. Le sold homemade spring rolls during her lunch hour. The spring rolls became so popular that friends urged the family to open a restaurant.

``In Vietnam, we had maids and she never cooked,'' Le said. ``Now she found her trade.''

Nearly two decades ago, the family opened a Vietnamese restaurant. They named it ``Chagio,'' which means spring roll.

Le didn't participate in sports while in high school because her help was needed at the restaurant. She started fencing 12 years ago, taking up the foil while studying business administration at the University of North Carolina. Soon, she was hooked.

``When you are on the strip it's like life and death,'' said Le, who sells computers in the Far East for Varified System Solutions. ``And then when you are done - hey, it's just a game.''

About a year ago she started fencing epee, which makes its Olympic women's debut this year, on a lark. When she began winning, she put aside the lighter foil to concentrate on the epee.

It was a whole new game; the torso serves as the target in foil, but the entire body is fair game in epee.

At 5-foot-2, Le is a foot shorter than some of her opponents. But what she lacks in height, she makes up for in speed.

``The epeeists are not as fast as she is,'' Nellya Fencing Club teammate Karen Porter said. ``Here's this little short person stepping inside of your distance. She does it so quickly that tall people don't know how to react.''

Le's family wasn't sure how to react when they found out about her interest in the sport. She didn't tell them right away.

``The entire time in college we didn't know she was fencing,'' Mrs. Le said.

When they did learn of her interest in the sport, they considered it a phase and have yet to see her fence in a tournament. That is expected to change at the national championships.

``They told me to get married, have kids, buy a house, have a kid instead of going to the tournaments,'' she said. ``And now they say maybe I'm not that bad.''

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PHOTO Olympic team member Lan Le's speed helps her competewith fencers who are more than a foot taller than she.

Cox News Service