Fencing: Seven Tigers return from productive Junior Olympics trip

For the men’s and women’s fencing teams, the games in Vancouver, Canada, weren’t the only type of Olympic competition occurring this weekend. Seven fencers traveled to Memphis, Tenn., to participate in a four-day competition in the Junior Olympics.

Princeton fencers at the Junior Olympics included junior Lucile Jarry for women’s foil, freshmen Joanna Cichomski and Eliza Stone for women’s saber, freshmen Phoebe Caldwell and Hannah Safford for women’s epee and freshmen Edward Kelley and Jonathan Yergler for men’s epee. Freshman Robert Malcolm was also scheduled to compete for men’s foil but could not make it to the tournament. Cichomski is also a staff photographer for The Daily Princetonian.

All Princeton fencers were competing in the Under-20 Junior League and qualified for the event in several ways. They had to have gained enough points by competing in domestic or international events, or they had to have finished in the top quarter of a Junior Olympics qualifying competition.

Last year, only two Princeton fencers — Jarry and junior John Stogin in saber — went to the Junior Olympics. Jarry placed 18th out of 136 women foilists, while Stogin took seventh out of 162 men sabrists.

This year, the Princeton fencers had a remarkable showing at the national competition. Stone took first place out of 111 women’s sabrists, and Cichomski placed 13th.

“[Stone] won the national championship in epee last July, and now the Junior Olympics. She is doing very, very well,” head coach Zoltan Dudas said. “[Cichomski] also made it to the top 16, and they actually had to fence one another. Both of them had a very good season so far, not just in this tournament, but the whole season. It is very good that they could perform this well right before the Ivy championship.”

Safford tied for third place out of 172 women epeeists, and Caldwell finished 27th. Safford had competed in the Junior World Tournament last spring and helped the U.S. epee team take a bronze medal.

Princeton also had an impressive performance in men’s epee, the tournament’s biggest event with 208 contestants. Kelley took eighth place, while Yergler took 29th. According to Dudas, this event was not as important for Yergler, because he has already qualified for the Junior World Championship, which will take place soon after the NCAA tournament. The top three in the national rankings for each fencing event compete in the Junior World Championship, and Yergler was already ranked No. 1 in epee.

“We now have about five or six kids in the top 10 of the national rankings,” Dudas said.

The whole team is now looking forward to the Ivy tournaments coming up in the next two weekends.

“Fortunately, it looks like we don’t have any major injuries, so most likely everybody will be able to fence. We have a very high spirit and good season behind us.”

While the competition in the Ivy League is very tough, Dudas said he foresees both the men and women having a great chance in the tournament.