Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

Breathtaking. Unexpected. Deserved.

Any and all of us who have been in and around American fencing for the last few decades know that where we are today is almost unrecognizable from where we were thirty years ago.

This journey inspired me to write a book about it –  From Cool Runnings to World Superpower: The Rise of American Fencing. Which goes on sale on June 14th, 2019!

The story of how America rose to the top is one that is as exciting as anything you’ll read about in sports. It’s intertwined with global politics, because we discover that America became home to some of the greatest fencing talent in the world thanks to the end of the Cold War. That talent, coupled with the incredible innovation that is the hallmark of the American ideal, has come together to create a story that it’s impossible to put down.

What happened with American fencers is the kind of transformation that you see in movies. In fact, it made me think of a classic Olympic film, Cool Runnings. You know the one, it’s the very fictionalized account of the real events that led to the first Jamaican bobsled team. U.S. fencers at one time were almost as much of a longshot as the bobsledders from the Caribbean, though without the comedy we see in the movie.

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American fencing is on a winning streak. You can feel it when you watch our top fencers vie for the top medals at worldwide competitions and win. That’s happening more and more every year, enough to call it more than a fluke, more than a lucky athlete here and there who made it to the top of an international podium. What we’re seeing is a swell of American fencing talent that’s been built over decades, in fits and starts but always with a trend towards a greater goal.

You only have to look at the Olympic medal counts that start at zero for broad decades in the early Twentieth Century, then trickle in with a podium here and there, then flood the stage starting with women’s sabre in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The changes over the last two decades from zero to quasi-hero are really impossible to miss!

It doesn’t matter if you follow epee, foil, or sabre, you can rest assured that there are American fencers of both genders pushing the boundaries against the fencing powerhouses of Europe, Asia, and the former Soviet bloc. If you’re reading this, then I’m probably not telling you anything new. You know that American fencing has been moving forward at a breakneck pace in the last twenty years. It might seem as though that’s a meteoric rise, however it’s anything but. American fencing has been building this ladder for a long time.

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