Curtis McDowald

Curtis McDowald (born January 23, 1996) is an American épée fencer. He competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics. In August 2025, McDowald was suspended by USA Fencing for a five-year period for conduct violations.

Early life McDowald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York. His mother, Demetria Goodwin, works at the Riker's Island jail. He attended the Dwight School, a college preparatory school on Central Park West on Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City, for high school. He attended St. John's University ('18), in Queens, New York, where he fenced for the St. John's Red Storm.

In June 2018 he won a bronze medal in épée at the 2018 Pan American Fencing Championships. In March 2019 McDowald won a bronze medal at a Buenos Aires Fencing World Cup in Argentina. In 2021, a GQ journalist described his personal admiration for McDowald, but noted that he was in the minority and that one commenter feared McDowald's approach to fencing would lead to it being "full of disrespectful trash players." In June 2023 McDowald was ranked 57th in the world in épée. McDowald was fencing as part of the squad in the semi-finals at the Pan American Fencing Championships in Lima, Peru. It was thereby stripped of its accumulated points, and left with zero Olympic qualifying points.

In the fall of 2023, McDowald competed at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, as a member of the U.S. men's épée team that won the gold medal. He was required to stay in a separate hotel away from the Athlete Village due to an incident unrelated to his later temporary suspension.

Subsequently, on November 3, 2023, McDowald was temporarily suspended by USA Fencing due to allegations that he had engaged in misconduct. He was prohibited during his temporary suspension from being present at any USA Fencing sanctioned event, club, meeting, facility, education session, or otherwise. SafeSport administratively closed the case in January 2024 after completing its investigation into the matter.

2025—present; five-year suspension

In August 2025, McDowald was suspended by USA Fencing for a five-year period because he had committed a number of violations of USA Fencing's Code of Conduct and Athlete Code of Conduct.