People come up to me and ask, "Is that hard?" That's a question I get a lot: "Is it hard?" I'm like, "It's really hard" [laughs].

You live up to who you're told you are. I'm named after a 17th-century queen from Angola, Nzinga Mbande. During the colonial period, the Europeans would try to come to Africa and take their land, and she defended her territory. I think it's not a coincidence that I'm named Nzingha and I go off with my sword and fight people for my country. I was always told that I'm a strong woman, and I was named after a strong woman, and I think it's not a coincidence that I've become this top fencer.

I think I fell in love with fencing because you never do the same thing twice. No one touch is going to be the same. It's not like you're swimming the same 100 meters every single day at practice. You're always trying new things and making things happen. It's never boring because no one is perfect at it -- someone is always going to get hit. You could fence the same person every day and it's always going to be different.

My boobs get in the way a lot when I'm working out. When I was younger, I didn't know how to deal with them. I would always run with my hands a little bit under my boobs so they wouldn't move as much and I ended up looking really funny. My coach would make fun of me; he had to get someone to teach me how to run. But I knew how to run, I just felt uncomfortable with these things. They are just heavy and a lot of extra weight. But I do feel very comfortable putting my fencing stuff on because I get to hide them. I don't have to worry about them moving around. I'm really glad that I do a sport where I'm so covered, otherwise I'd be really self-conscious.

At the Olympics, I get asked a lot, "Oh, what track event are you?" "Fencing." "Oh, I thought you did track." I guess because our quads are very similar to track quads. Fencing is a quad-dominant sport.

I think of fencing as part calculating and part doing. It's very mental. When Plan A doesn't work, you have to be ready to shift quickly to Plan B, C, D, E. People call it physical chess, but that's a corny analogy; I hate when people say that.

Fencing is basically being able to capitalize on someone else's mistake. I talk to myself a lot when I'm fencing -- to be confident, to be strong, just giving myself encouragement. With my psychotherapist, we work on avoiding thoughts that make you hesitate. Hesitating in fencing is not going to work.

On the subway, I get a lot of stares, so I try to avoid eye contact. Growing up in Brooklyn, I'd be taking the train with my fencing gear, and people would be staring at me like, "What are you doing?" People would always ask me, "What are you doing with that?" ... that kind of thing. Now I get more, "Oh, you fence? That's awesome! Keep it up."

This was my mom's bright idea. I started fencing when I was 9 at the Peter Westbrook Foundation. I started with my sister, my best friend and one other girl. Fencing is usually pretty exclusive because it's so expensive, and Peter started the foundation to make fencing more accessible to minorities. I was doing ballet and gymnastics and tennis, swimming, karate, all these sports. But the amount of resources that the foundation had and could offer was so much more, so this was the clear path for me and my sister.