USA Fencing

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Ciao, Milan! Let’s fence.

USA Fencing is sending a lineup of 25 of the nation’s best fencers to the 2023 FIE Fencing World Championships this month in Milan, Italy.

The squad includes an intriguing mix of athletes — from Olympic champions to 17-year-old rising stars, from exciting newcomers competing at their first Senior Worlds to one fencer competing in the tournament for a stunning 13th time.

There’s one thing they all have in common: they’re hungry to send Team USA back to the medal stand. At the 2022 Worlds in Cairo, Egypt, the Americans brought home four medals: silvers in the women’s foil and men’s foil team events and individual bronzes for Lee Kiefer OLY (Women’s Foil) and Nick Itkin OLY (Men’s Foil).

Both of those individual medalists are back this time, and they and their teammates are ready for more. Here are a few key storylines to watch:

Team USA's uber-talented Men’s Foil squad features four Olympians who have a combined 38 Senior Worlds appearances among them — 13 for Gerek Meinhardt OLY, 11 each for Miles Chamley-Watson OLY and Alexander Massialas OLY and three for Nick Itkin OLY.

Each member of the Men’s Foil squad is ranked in the Top 16 in the world, meaning they’re exempt from pools and initial direct-elimination bouts on July 24 and will move directly into the main tableau of 64 on July 27.

The Paris 2024 qualification cycle is well underway (and you can track Team USA’s status here).

After the 2023 Zonals in Peru, Team USA is qualifying five of its six squads for Paris. What’s more, we have three teams — Men’s Foil, Women’s Saber and Men’s Saber — who are at this moment sitting in the top qualifying position in the world.

But our athletes know there’s still much more work to be done, and that continues in Milan. Fencing fans will want to pay particular attention to the team events that begin on July 27, because qualifying point values are doubled at the World Championships.

Six of Team USA’s younger members are headed to Milan after a successful trip to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, for the 2023 Junior and Cadet World Championships.

That list includes Hadley Husisian (Women’s Epee), Samuel Imrek (Men’s Epee), Lauren Scruggs (Women’s Foil), Magda Skarbonkiewicz (Women’s Saber), Tatiana Nazlymov (Women’s Saber) and Colin Heathcock (Men’s Saber).

Team USA features a pair of athletes currently ranked first in the world in their weapon: Lee Kiefer OLY (Women’s Foil) and Alexander Massialas OLY (Men’s Foil).

The two have one other thing in common: they’ve each earned seven medals at Senior World Championships, including a team gold medal each — Kiefer in 2018 and Massialas in 2019.

Kiefer will be exempt from pools and make her debut July 26, while Massialas will see his first action a day later, on July 27.

In Men’s Epee, Team USA is sending a squad of talented athletes making their Senior Worlds debut. Men’s Epee is the only one of our six squads where that’s the case.

But what they may lack in Senior Worlds experience, the group of Dylan Nollner, Stephen Ewart, Tristan Szapary and Samuel Imrek more than makes up for in talent and drive. They’ll be fun to watch when they take the strip for their individual pools on July 23.

Team USA has a crop of impressive young athletes who are excelling at the senior level even though some aren’t yet old enough to vote. Three members (Samuel Imrek, Magda Skarbonkiewicz and Colin Heathcock) are just 17.

While Colin Heathcock (born Dec. 20, 2005) is the youngest athlete on Team USA, our youngest squad is actually Women’s Saber, with an average age of 20.75.

Here’s each squad by average age, from oldest to youngest:

• Men's Foil: 29.5 years old
• Women's Epee: 25.6 years old
• Women's Foil: 24.5 years old
• Men's Epee: 23 years old
• Men's Saber: 22.5 years old
• Women's Saber: 20.75 years

Great athletes train at great fencing clubs, and USA Fencing has some incredible clubs in cities across the country. Among the clubs with the most fencers on our Senior Worlds Team:

• New York Athletic Club (NYAC), with five athletes (Kat Holmes, Anne Cebula, Dylan Nollner, Stephen Ewart and Mitchell Saron).
• The Fencers Club, with five athletes (Kasia Nixon, Hadley Husisian, Tristan Szapary, Maia Weintraub and Andrew Doddo).
• The Peter Westbrook Foundation, with three athletes (Isis Washington, Kasia Nixon, Lauren Scruggs).
• The Manhattan Fencing Center, with three athletes (Elizabeth Tartakovsky, Maia Chamberlain and Colin Heathcock)

There’s a strong tradition of collegiate fencing in this group. Princeton is most represented here with six athletes, followed by Harvard and Notre Dame with four and Columbia with three. See the list below, and note that some younger team members aren’t yet in college, so we didn’t include them here.

Women's Epee:

Kat Holmes OLY - Princeton University

Isis Washington - St. John's University

Kasia Nixon - Princeton University

Anne Cebula - Columbia University

Hadley Husisian - Princeton University

Men's Epee:

Dylan Nollner - Duke University

Stephen Ewart Jr. - University of Notre Dame

Tristan Szapary - Princeton University

Women's Foil:

Lee Kiefer OLY - University of Notre Dame

Jackie Dubrovich OLY - Columbia University

Lauren Scruggs - Harvard University

Maia Weintraub - Princeton University

Men's Foil:

Alexander Massialas OLY - Stanford University

Gerek Meinhardt OLY - University of Notre Dame

Nick Itkin OLY - University of Notre Dame

Miles Chamley-Watson OLY - Pennsylvania State University

Women's Saber:

Elizabeth Tartakovsky - Harvard University

Maia Chamberlain - Princeton University

Men's Saber:

Eli Dershwitz OLY - Harvard University

Andrew Doddo - Columbia University

Mitchell Saron - Harvard University

Fencing is, for the most part, an individual sport. When a bout begins, there’s never more than one person on each half of the strip.

But these fencers can’t do their job without the team behind them — including coaches, armorers, sports med, a team leader and many more. This group is known in the fencing world as the cadre.

Here’s the cadre for Milan. Note that the list includes only the national coaches for each weapon and doesn’t include fencers’ personal coaches.

• Men’s Epee Coach: Franco Cerutti
• Men's Epee Assistant Coach: Dwight Smith
• Women’s Epee Coach: Natalie Dostert
• Women's Epee Assistant Coach: Cedric Loiseau
• Men’s Saber Coach: Akhi Spencer-El
• Women’s Saber Coach: Aleks Ochocki
• Men’s Foil Coach: Greg Massialas OLY
• Women’s Foil Coach: Ralf Bissdorf OLY (Germany)
• Chief of Mission: Saul Mendoza
• Team Captain: Dagmara Wozniak OLY
• Armorer: Liz Morey
• Sports Med: Peggy Chin and Adam Thompson; Stephanie Weston (Massage Therapist); Mariam Zakhary (Mt. Sinai Physician)
• Communications: Bryan Wendell
• Team Leader: Kate Reisinger
• USA Referee: Laura Decker