Laurence Fischer

About Laurence Fischer

Born on November 7, 1973, Laurence Fischer is a French karateka who has won numerous international competitions, including three world karate championships, two in individual women’s kumite (fighting) and one in team kumite.

Laurence Fischer tried karate at the age of six, a sport she did not enjoy at that time: she preferred dance and theater. However, encouraged by her father, a former karateka himself, she returned to practicing karate at the age of twelve. She gradually began to enjoy it through learning and technique.

Laurence followed a normal education while achieving sports success.

Her first performances in the senior circuit date back to 1995, the year she won the gold medal at the French Karate Championship, and she did so for eleven consecutive years.

In 1998, she won the world champion title in Rio de Janeiro. Two years later, it was as a team that she won the world title in Munich. This victory was historic for the French women’s team.

Following this first world title, she only won bronze medals until 2006, the year Laurence became world champion again. It was on this last title that she ended her career.

Additionally, between 1999 and 2006, she won the gold medal seven times at the European Championships (including two as a team).

At the same time, Laurence managed to pursue higher education at ESSEC, from which she graduated with an MBA (Grande Ecole program).

An advocate for education through sports, in 2003, Laurence became, among other commitments, one of the patrons of Sports Without Borders, an association with which she spent a month in Afghanistan in August 2005 to teach karate to Afghan girls.

After two years as a manager at the equipment supplier Nike, Laurence returned to her first love and underwent three years of intensive training in Dramatic Arts: one year at the Pygmalion Studio, followed by two years in Jean-Laurent Cochet’s course. Her first public appearances were in Master Classes organized by Jean-Laurent Cochet’s course (excerpts from plays where she presented the character of Mademoiselle de E Bourdet, Agrippine in Racine’s Britannicus, or Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra in English). The year 2011 marked the first play produced and performed with the actors from her training: Le sexe faible, by Edouard Bourdet.