HOW FAR WE’VE COME WHERE WE’RE HEADED

BY PHIL ANDREWS, USA FENCING CEO

It might feel a bit odd for someone with just four months of experience leading USA Fencing (by the time you read this) to write an article reviewing our year here at USA Fencing, but it’s been a year of turnover and change at USA Fencing’s HQ — so perhaps that’s representative of the year it has been.

The year 2022 provided for many a first year back to what resembled a regular schedule of training and competition. As such, it seems fitting to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the perseverance of all USA Fencing athletes, coaches, parents and administrators through the pandemic — a pandemic that, of course, continues to affect us both domestically and worldwide.

While the 2020 Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games grabbed headlines in 2021 as COVID continued to rage, I want to give a special tip of my hat to our elite athletes, including members of our cadet, junior, senior and parafencing teams. These incredible athletes traveled the world throughout the pandemic in differing and difficult circumstances — not to mention the training required to achieve the kinds of high-level results outlined in this issue of American Fencing.

A solid performance at the Senior Fencing World Championships in Cairo capped the 2021-2022 season, with highlights for both our women’s and men’s foil teams. On the Paralympic side, Ellen Geddes PLY began to pick up medals on the World Cup circuit with just two years to go to the Paris Games. These accomplishments bode well for our chances in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024, while the future is bright for 2028 with continued significant success on the cadet and junior circuits.

Speaking of looking ahead, this is an exciting time within our organization as fresh faces bring new ideas and an appetite for hearing from our members to provide what you want and need out of our sport. About 80% of our staff team has served at USA Fencing for less than a year. On our board, we’re pleased to welcome new independent directors as well as Ivan Lee OLY as a vice chair. This means renewed energy in both our staff and volunteer leadership.

That’s leading us to aggressively tackle many of our strategic plan goals both on and off the strip. Over the next year, you can expect us to review start to finish our events offerings, our membership offerings, significantly increase our best practices and deliver a long-promised coaching education program. You can also expect us to focus on service to our members as we put service and growth as two major themes of the coming year. Expect to us be more present in the field, listening to our membership and using those ideas to help us grow while still focusing on the goals outlined in our strategic plan.

Those goals include growing charitable contributions to fencing, which is where the U.S. Fencing Foundation comes in. The Foundation is enjoying a renewed energy under Robert Zagunis’ leadership and with the addition of Amanda Lilly to the Development team.

As one calendar year ends and another begins, we hope you’ll join us in making USA Fencing an even greater organization and helping to fund some of the areas not covered by operating income.

This is a great time to be in the fencing family, and from all of us at USA Fencing, I wish you peace, hope and joy in the new year.