Hilda von Puttkammer

Hilda von Puttkammer, who was affiliated with Club Athletico Paulistano, won the 1929 Brazilian national fencing championship at age 17. In 1936 she became the first South American woman to fence in the Olympics. She was a silver medalist at the 1946 Brazilian national championships and fourth in the first South American championship held in Argentina.

Von Puttkammer was invited to fence for Brazil in the 1948 Olympics in London but was unable to attend. She led a movement to hold a competition to select another athlete to take her place, and this angered the Brazilian fencing federation which led her to being banned from the sport. She was then named honorary director of fencing at Paulistano.