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Fitness & Sports

Local Fencing Club Earns Most Medals from Junior Olympics Championships

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HOUSTON, TX – For the second year in a row, local fencing club Alliance Fencing Academy brought home more medals than any other fencing club in the United States at the Junior Olympic Fencing Championships. The competition had events in epee, foil and saber, but Alliance Fencing Academy fencers won more medals than any other club in any weapon. The tournament was held in Columbus, Ohio from February 14-19.

Alliance Fencing Academy athletes garnered 7 medals at the Junior Olympics competition. Alliance fencers earned one Gold, four Bronze and two top 8 medals. Alliance’s Junior Men’s Epee Team brought home the Gold beating out 44 other teams. Alliance Fencing Academy Junior Men’s Team 1 was comprised of Mike Bissinger, Isaac Herbst, Levi Hughes and Ark Ma. In the Junior Team Women’s Epee event, Alliance Fencing Academy Team 1 comprised of Pilar Maldonado, Ariana Rausch, Elizabeth Wang and Karen Wang earned Bronze in competition with 16 other teams. 

Alliance fencers continued their collection of medals in the Individual Epee competitions. In a field of 333 fencers, Ark Ma won the Bronze medal in Cadet Men’s Individual Epee. In a field of 264 fencers, Elizabeth Gregory took the Bronze medal and her teammates Ariana Rausch and Elizabeth Wang took 6 th and 7 th place medals, respectively, in Junior Women’s Epee. In Junior Men’s Individual Epee, Mike Bissinger won the Bronze medal in a field of 394 fencers.

 

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This year’s Fencing Junior Olympics was the largest ever in the sport’s 48-year history. Over 2,300 athletes from 44 states and 350 clubs competed during the four-day event held in Ohio. Forty-one (41) athletes from Alliance Fencing Academy qualified to compete at the event, more than any other club in the United States.

To compete at Junior Olympics, fencers must have earned national points as either a Cadet (under 17 years old) or Junior (under 20 years old) or qualify through divisional qualifiers. While competing at the Junior Olympics is a feat in itself, the tournament also serves as the final US tournament for the selection of competitors to represent the United States at the Junior and Cadet World Championships.

Alliance Fencing Academy was founded in 2004 by United States Olympic Coach, Andrey Geva. Geva led Team USA’s Women’s Epee Team in the 2016 Olympics in Rio and is the United States’ Coach for the US Women’s Epee Team in the 2020 Olympics this summer in Tokyo. Alliance Fencing Academy is the largest epee fencing club in the United States with over 300 students at its two locations in Houston and The Woodlands. It is also a top producer of collegiate fencers, with nearly 50 students receiving athletic and academic scholarships. For more information, please visit Alliance-Fencing-Academy.com or contact Natasha Geva at (713) 515-3905, or email inform@alliance-fencing-academy.com.

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