USA Fencing

(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – USA Fencing is pleased to announce that the coaching staff has been named for the 2013 Junior and Cadet World Championships that will be held from April 6-15 in Porec, Croatia. 

“I am honored to be able to announce that we have a group of six of our best coaches working with athletes that are likely to be our future Olympians,” said USA Fencing President Don Anthony (Columbus, Ohio). “During the past few years, our junior and cadet squads have become increasingly successful and USA Fencing has grown to have one of the best junior and cadet teams in the world. I’m looking forward to seeing great results from our young athletes again this year and know the staff we’ve put in place will help do just that.”

Greg Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.) will serve as the head coach for the U.S. Men’s Foil Team – a squad that won gold in the team event in 2012 for the third time in four years. At least two of the fencers from that squad – London Olympians Alexander Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.) and Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.) – are expected to return to Team USA to defend their team title. Both fencers also were instrumental in the Senior U.S. Men’s Foil Team’s first ever gold medal World Cup win in Paris last month.

Amgad Khazbak (Lexington, Ky.) was at the helm in 2012 when the U.S. Women’s Foil Team won the silver medal. Khazbak, who coached both the 2011 Senior World and 2012 U.S. Olympic Teams, is the personal coach of 2011 Senior World medalist Lee Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.) who is expected to fence for a chance at her first Junior World title in Croatia.

Three-time U.S. Olympic Team Women’s Saber Coach Ed Korfanty (Portland, Ore.) has led both junior and senior teams to gold medals at the World Championships and is aiming to help Team USA win its ninth women’s saber team medal since the event was added to the Junior World program in 2000.

Zoran Tulum (Natick, Mass.), a 1996 U.S. Olympic Team Coach, served as a personal coach in 2012 when his athletes, Eli Dershwitz (Sherborn, Mass.) and Andrew Mackiewicz (Westwood, Mass.), won medals at the Junior and Cadet Worlds, respectively. This year, Tulum will join Team USA as head coach of the Men’s Saber Team.

Maureen Griffin (San Francisco, Calif.) will serve as head coach of the junior and cadet women’s epee team. Under Griffin’s guidance, Team USA won medals at three of the last four Junior World Team Championships.

Andrey Geva (Houston, Texas) will be joining the U.S. Team coaching staff for the first time as the head coach of the men’s junior and cadet epee squads. Geva, whose program at the Alliance Fencing Academy, has produced many of the top junior men’s and women’s epee fencers in the country and was a former coach of Israel’s National Team before moving to the United States.

“I’m enthusiastic about the coaching staff we have appointed to work with our juniors and cadets in Croatia.  These coaches have been traveling to Junior World Cups and Cadet European Cups all season and have been instrumental in Team USA’s athletes winning medals in each of the weapons against many of the same athletes they’ll be facing at the Junior and Cadet Worlds,” said USA Fencing Director of Sport Performance and Development Seth Kelsey (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

Athlete selection for Team USA will be finalized during the Junior Olympic Fencing Championships in Baltimore this weekend for men’s epee, foil and saber and women’s epee and foil.  The women’s saber team will be named following the conclusion of the Gent Saber World Cup in Belgium on Feb. 23.