CityView Magazine

Sports fence H Off the En garde! Fencing is no longer the forgotten sport By Nathan Walls igh above downtown streets, masked competitors, garbed all in white, lunged toward one another, sabers in hand. Their quick jabs honed balance and speed. Fencing, the sport long associated with Ivy League colleges and former Soviet Bloc countries, has found a firm foothold in Fayetteville. The sport has seen a surge in popularity since the Summer Olympics when American fencers took home six medals. Ten years ago, the United States Fencing Association claimed 13,231 members. In 2008, the association had 22,091 members. “Fencing in North Carolina just shot up right after the Olympics,” said Gerhard Guevarra, owner and head coach at All-American Fencing Academy downtown. “We’ve got a great U.S. team that’s been doing so much better than any team we’ve had in the past, so they’ve been getting the limelight.” That team included Becca Ward. Last summer, Ward won bronze in Beijing – now she is a freshman at Duke University. Even Fayetteville had a brush with Olympic fencing fame. Olympic athlete and Polish fencer Aleksandra Socha taught classes at The Fayetteville Academy and All-American Fencing Academy. She also happens to be the wife of a Fort Bragg soldier. “She intended to stay here a little bit longer,” Guevarra said, “but the Polish team was so close to getting a medal in the 2008 Olympics. She thought she was going to retire and start coaching, but the Polish team convinced her to try one more time. She is now back in camps and training in Poland for the 2012 Olympics.” But All-American has kept on rolling, hosting tournaments that attract fencers from all over the state. On recent back- to-back weekends, fencers were placed in brackets and advanced by single elimination. Referees kept score as the athletes whittled their opponents until there was one winner in each category. Paul Hovey is a senior at Reid Ross Classical School and one of All- American’s top students. He has competed in the Junior Olympics and the North American Cup. When he starts college in the fall, Paul hopes to make the fencing team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has studied fencing since 2001, when the academy first got its start as the Cumberland County Fencing Club. “It just seemed like an interesting sport,” he said. Top | Justin Jacobs, left, and Dave Aitken compete at the All-American Fencing Academy downtown. Above | Interest in fencing is on the rise. Seth Jans, left, gets a tip from coach John Page. CityViewNC.com | 61

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