For Immediate Release
January 12, 2009
U.S. Olympic Fencers Gerek Meinhardt and Seth Kelsey Headline San Jose North American Cup
Over 1,300 fencers will invade the San Jose Convention Center for the 2009-10 North American Cup, which starts Friday and concludes on Monday, Jan. 18. U.S. Olympian Gerek Meinhardt (San Francisco), who also competed at the last four Junior World Championships, and two-time U.S. Olympian Seth Kelsey (Brush Prairies, Wash.) lead the tournament list of division one athletes.
Meinhardt, who finished 10th at the Beijing Olympics in men's foil, will be challenged by No. 3 ranked Miles Chamley-Watson (Philadelphia) and No. 4 rated Alexander Massialas (San Francisco), who is the youngest athlete to win a Div. 1 men's foil title in the United States and garners two Cadet World Cup titles. The trio will compete for the men's foil title.
Kelsey, an Air Force Academy graduate and Air Force World Class Athlete Program athlete, will lead the men's epee division against second-seeded Army World Class Athlete Program athlete Cody Mattern (Portland, Ore.) and third seed Ben Bratton (New York, N.Y.). Kelsey finished 17th at the Beijing Olympics and 19th at the Athens Olympics in men's epee.
2009 U.S. World Championships team member Lindsay Campbell (Brooklyn, N.Y.) will lead the women's epee division in San Jose and be challenged by third-ranked Courtney Hurley (San Antonio, Texas), who has won four Junior World Cup events this season. The tandem will be pushed by a pair of New Jersey rated fencers - No. 4 Danielle Henderson (Piscataway) and No. 10 Maya Lawrence (Teaneck).
The San Jose NAC event will start at 8 a.m. and conclude at 8 p.m. daily. Admission to the event is free and open to the public. All competition will be held in Halls 2 and 3 of the San Jose Convention Center, located at 135 West San Carlos St., in San Jose, Calif.
The women's foil division will feature a pair of top rated U.S. fencers. Leading the way is No. 1 Nzingha Prescod (Brooklyn, N.Y.), who just returned stateside after winning a bronze medal at Hungary's Coupe Heracles Junior World Cup, Jan. 3-5, and No. 2 Ambika Singh (Skillman, N.J.).
The men's sabre division will be lead by Daryl Home (New York), while on the women's side, No. 3 Dagmara Wozniak (Avenel, N.J) and No. 4 Daria Schneider (New York) lead the way.
Also, a handful of athletes from Canada and Panama will try their talents against some of the best fencers in the United States.
The NAC tournaments are a series of sanctioned U.S. Fencing Association events providing fencers across the world the opportunity to compete in men's and women's Epee, Foil and Sabre to earn ranking points.
The next NAC event is scheduled for Dallas, March 26-29, hosting division 2, division 3, veterans and wheelchair divisions. The final NAC is slated for April 23-26 in Virginia Beach, Va., for elite athletes and multiple youth divisions (born in 1995-2002).
NAC tournaments are open to foreign fencers who have an FIE license valid for the current season and/or can show proof of membership in another fencing federation, and who meet age/classification requirements for specific NAC competitions. U.S. Fencers must be current members of the U.S. Fencing Association, but do not need their membership number to register for National Events.
For more information and entry forms on North American Cup events click here.
About U.S. Fencing Association: The United States Fencing Association (USFA) is the recognized NGB for the sport of fencing in the United States. The USFA was founded in 1891 as the Amateur Fencers League of America (AFLA) by a group of New York fencers seeking independence from the Amateur Athletic Union. The AFLA changed its name to the United States Fencing Association in 1981. The USFA is affiliated with the Féderation Internationale d'Escrime (FIE), the international federation for fencing founded in Paris in 1913. The USFA was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in Pennsylvania in 1964 and in Colorado in 1993 in compliance with the Amateur Sports Act and opened its national office at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. in August of 1982.
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