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Happy December, Members!
Firstly, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday and that you're enjoying the upcoming December holidays — however you might celebrate.
There’s a lot going on within USA Fencing, not least that we are getting deep into the season with teams going around the world every week. And, of course, in just over a week we'll hold our December North American Cup in Salt Lake City. Just like our October NAC was the biggest yet, this will be our biggest ever December NAC — a sign of the strength of this community in rebounding since the pandemic.
It seems right and proper to start off with our "dynasty" (no other word seems to fit) Men’s Foil team. For the third time in a row, the men took home team gold at the Bonn World Cup in Germany. This tournament started the season for all senior weapons except Women’s Foil, who get underway in Serbia later this month.
Meanwhile, our Cadets and Juniors though continue to roam free around the world winning each team gold available save one (where they won silver). Overall our Seniors, Cadets and Juniors won 53% of all available gold medals in the month, and 68% of all available team medals. That is an outstanding start to the season across able-bodied fencing.
On the parafencing side, our team was in World Cup action in Eger, Hungary — one of the powerhouses of fencing both in able-bodied and parafencing. This World Cup is also the last major world event before we host the 2023 IWAS Wheelchair Fencing World Cup in the Washington, D.C., metro area in January. Once again, our attention goes to Ellen Geddes PLY who won yet another medal at the Hungary World Cup to close out what has arguably been a career calendar year in 2022.
We’re excited to see what Ellen, Byron Branch, Scott Rodgers PLY and the rest of Team USA will bring on home soil. More exciting news in the para side: thanks to a generous donor, we’ve been able to provide para start-up funds for an additional club in Florida to host parafencing. Early in 2023, a new NCAA collegiate fencing program will be added and become the first college to have parafencing offered from the very start. More on that later.
Speaking of Florida, sadly we lost referee and former University of Florida coach Bruce Capin, as well as Robert Blum OLY. These were respected figures in our sport and will be missed. Bruce was well known for his character, impact on Florida fencing and his contributions to fencing all the way up to his passing. Indeed I had the pleasure of meeting him recently at the SYC of the Rockies at the Denver Fencing Center. Both of the individuals lost will be felt deeply in our community, and the loss of Bruce will be felt immediately and impactfully among our referee cadre in particular.
Speaking of impactfully working in our community, we’ve just today opened up nominations for three at-large directors for the USA Fencing Board of Directors. These critical roles are amongst five who are eligible to become Chair of USA Fencing, and therefore the leader of the Board. With three individuals being elected, there is a 60% chance one of them will be the Chair of USA Fencing. If you feel you can contribute to driving the strategy and oversight functions of USA Fencing, go here. There are about three weeks in which to apply, although I encourage you to do so early as to avoid deadline issues.
There’s been exciting progress on some of our projects. We learned that a new NCAA college will add fencing shortly, and will add, as I mentioned, parafencing. That will be announced by the end of February. Meanwhile, we’ve opened active conversations with two more colleges about adding fencing. This work is essential to ensure we have a future in the NCAA. (A reminder, related, that we are putting together a group to work on this subject.)
We’ve also excited to confirm that:
- We will be having the U.S. Fencing Foundation’s first gala in April of 2023
- We will be hosting a club best practices conference in the coming months
- We’ve signed our first sponsor in a long time
All of these will get further announcements as time goes on, but progress is going well on all of these fronts.
The FIE (our international fencing federation), too, is to be applauded for its collective vote to uphold the IOC (and indeed, the IPC) position on the participation of Russian and Belorussian athletes. I want to call out the contribution of Sam Cheris, who has spent several decades establishing himself within the FIE. He used his time and reputation in this group to speak forcefully at the request of our elite athletes in favor of upholding the current sanction, which I believe will benefit fencing in the eyes of the Olympic/Paralympic movement and the world.
December brings our latest board meeting, where we expect to add two exciting independents, whom we will introduce to the membership shortly should the board agree to their participation. We will approve a modification to solidify our position that parafencing is a priority for us, and we will give the board (and public listening in) an overview of forthcoming changes to disciplinary procedures in order to ensure a clearer and simpler way to report.
We’re also working away on USA Fencing insurance, and we are seeing some success — to do so, we’ll be out in the field more to look at what is actually happening in our clubs and in the fencing community. We'll also look after our approach to culture, abuse in sport and more as a community. We want to make these a useful experience for clubs, so look for more on how we are thinking about doing that soon.
Speaking of clubs, the club survey is in your inbox just now, and I encourage club managers, owners and coaches to respond. The listening tour that I’ve undertaken has given me some great insight of how we can help clubs move forward, but we need your feedback to be effective.
There’s plenty going on — and we are experiencing great insights from across the community.
Please find me or someone on our team at the December NAC (or just hit reply), and we’ll be more than happy to engage in more conversations!
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