PLOVDIV, BULGARIA – Hadley Husisian ’26 is junior women’s epée world champion once more.
This past week, at the Junior & Cadet Fencing World Championships, Husisian defended her epée title from the 2022 Championships, becoming one of two American fencers to ever win the tournament, and the first American fencer to ever win the title twice.
“Becoming the first U.S. women’s epéeist to become a two-time world champion was such a special feeling,” Husisian told the Daily Princetonian.
En route to the title, Husisian progressed through the pool stages, which saw the field of fencers divided into groups of seven. In the round-robin play to determine seeding in the knockout stages, Husisian fenced to a 4–2 record, ranking 44th out of 174 fencers who competed in the event.
Doing enough to move into the knockout stages, Husisian improved her play as the tournament progressed. Receiving a bye into the Round of 128, Husisian first defeated Hailin Chen of Hong Kong, 15–12. In the next round, Husisian dominated Italian Benedetta Madrignani, 15–6. She then moved into the quarterfinals with wins over Bulgarian Mihaela Stefanova and Italian Gaia Caforio.
From there, Husisian’s goal of retaining her title only grew nearer. After defeating Dilnaz Murzataeva of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals, and Nicole Feygin of Israel in the semifinals, Husisian squared off on the strip with Poland’s Alicja Klasik for the title. With her coaches, teammates, and friends looking on, Husisian won the final bout 15–9 to secure the repeat.
“Fencing is a small sport, so it really feels like you have all of USA Fencing supporting you when you’re out there competing for your country,” Husisian said. “It was amazing to be able to achieve my goal with all of my friends, family, and teammates watching me.”
Now, after repeating as world junior champion, Husisian will set her sights on her next goal — competing in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“Now that I’ve achieved that, I can shift focus to trying to qualify for Paris,” Husisian continued. “Though I’m really proud of how I finished the junior season, senior [competition] is a big step forward, so I still definitely have to keep training hard in order to achieve my next goal of qualifying for the 2024 Olympics.”
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Cole Keller is an associate editor for the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’
Please direct any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.