Willy Fitting came from a prominent fencing family, himself the son of four-time fencing Olympian Édouard Fitting and nephew of Frédéric Fitting and Emma Fitting who also competed for Switzerland at the Olympics in the 1920s and 1930s. Born into a family of doctors, he had a relatively affluent upbringing, but suffered misfortunes during World War II which saw his family lose most of their money, further exacerbated by the death of his father in 1945.
Fitting sought out to follow his family’s tradition in the sport of fencing while attending schooling to eventually become a dentist. He was afflicted with an autoimmune condition, myasthenia gravis, which made the long nature of fencing tournaments difficult on his body, but learned how to manage. He was eventually selected in 1952 for the Swiss national fencing delegation to compete in the Helsinki Olympics, and at the age of 27, was one of its youngest members. There, he won a bronze medal in the épée team event alongside Otto Rüfenacht, Paul Meister, Oswald Zappelli, Paul Barth and Mario Valota. He retired from active competition shortly after to focus on his career. Married to French-Swiss opera singer and director Renée Auphan, he had one son.
Switzerland