USA Fencing

(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – USA Fencing is pleased to announce that five fencers will represent Team USA at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China from Aug. 17-20.

Competitors were selected for the Youth Olympic Games based on their results at the 2014 Cadet World Championships.

Each of the five fencers selected for Team USA were medalists at the Cadet Worlds in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in April.

Seventeen-year-old Sabrina Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.) won her second Cadet World medal with a silver in Bulgaria and, less than a week later, went on to anchor the U.S. Women’s Foil Team to its first gold medal win at the Junior World Championships since 2009. A member of the Senior National Team, Massialas won gold in the team competition at the Pan American Championships earlier this month. Massialas comes from a long fencing family tradition as her older brother, Alexander Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.), won silver in men’s foil at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games and went on to become the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic Team in London.

Epee fencer Justin Yoo (La Verne, Calif.) made his World Championship debut in Plovdiv where he won silver in the cadet event and bronze in the junior competition as a 16-year-old. Yoo’s podium finishes made him the first U.S. men’s epee fencer ever to win individual medals at the Junior and Cadet Worlds in the same year.

George Haglund (Califon, N.J.) earned a position on his first Cadet World Team with a gold medal at the Pisa Foil Cadet European Cup in January and fenced in the finals of the Cadet Worlds where he took a silver medal.

A gold medalist at the Gothenburg Epee Cadet European Cup in Sweden in February, 16-year-old Kasia Nixon (Los Angeles, Calif.) returned to the podium at her second Cadet Worlds where she took bronze in women’s epee.

Karol Metryka (Linden, N.J.) fenced for the first full season as a U.S. citizen beginning in September when the former Polish citizen won silver in his former country at the Konin Saber Cadet European Cup. After winning gold at the Junior Olympic Fencing Championships in February, Metryka took bronze at the Cadet Worlds.

All five fencers will be eligible to fence in the mixed team event which will include continental teams of six competitors each (one per gender and weapon). Teams will be selected based on each athlete’s results in the individual events.

The competition schedule is as follows:

Saturday, Aug. 17
Men’s Saber
Women’s Foil

Sunday, Aug. 18
Men’s Epee
Women’s Epee

Monday, Aug. 19
Men’s Foil
Women’s Saber

Tuesday, Aug. 20
Mixed Team Events