Twenty-three SoCal fencers qualified at the JO Qualifier on Saturday for the 2025 Junior Olympic Championships to be held on February 14-17 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Congratulations to all our qualified fencers and good luck in North Carolina!

Qualified fencers are listed below. For full results, go here.

Qualified Fencers – Men

Qualified Fencers – Women

SoCal medalists are listed below. For full results, go here. For past results check out our Results Archive.

SoCal Medalists

Ninety fencers from across Southern California made their way to the tennis courts at Calabasas High School on Saturday for this year’s combined Junior Olympic and Summer National Qualifier Tournament. Sixty-five fencers qualified for Junior, Cadet, Division II and Division III events at the Junior Olympics and Summer Nationals to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from July 3-12, 2021. In addition, 13 fencers earned new ratings.

Congratulations to all our qualified fencers and good luck in Philadelphia!

Qualified fencers are listed below. Full results can be found, here.

Qualified Fencers (updated 5/25/2021)

SoCal fencers returned from this year’s Junior Olympic Championships in Columbus, Ohio, with medals in five epee events: three individual and two team. The Swords Women’s Epee Team bested 16 other teams to bring home the gold, while the LAIFC Men’s Epee Team finished ahead of 43 other teams to earn the Silver medal in their event.

Congratulations to all our Junior Olympic medalists!

SoCal medalist are listed below. For full results, see here.

SoCal Medalists

The 2019-2020 Junior Olympic Qualifier was held on December 1, 2019 on the campus of Pasadena City College. Eighteen men and 10 women qualified for the 2020 Junior Olympic Championships, which will be held in Columbus, Ohio, February 14-17, 2020.

Essentially the National Championships for under-20 fencers, the Junior Olympics have been held every year, usually over the President’s Day weekend, since 1972.

Qualified fencers are listed below. For full results, see here.

Qualified Fencers - Men

Qualified Fencers - Women

One fourth of all the individual gold medals handed out at this year’s Junior Olympic Championships in Denver, Colorado (Feb. 15-18, 2019) were won by fencers from the Southern California Division.

The newly crowned Junior Olympic Champions from Southern California are: Mikaela Avakian (WCFA), who won the gold in Cadet Women’s Saber; Bryce Louie (LAIFC), who took first place in Cadet Men’s Foil, and Stephen Ewart, who won the Junior Men’s Epee event for the second year in a row!

Other medalist include Claire Beddingfield (LAIFC), who took 7th in Junior Women’s Epee, and Matthew Limb (AGFC), who finished 8th in Cadet Men’s Saber.

SoCal medalist are listed, below. Full results can be found here.

SoCal Medalists

Photos courtesy of Kathryn Atwood. If you have photos of SoCal fencers doing well that you would like to share, please contact web admin.

Graydon Schulze-Kalt (right, LAIFC) makes an attack against Julian Amico (UFA) in the Junior Men’s Foil event at the Junior Olympic Qualifier in Pasadena.

The Southern California Division’s annual Junior Olympic Qualifier was held at the Hutto-Patterson Gym on the campus of Pasadena City College on Sunday, December 2, 2018. Junior (under 20) and Cadet (under 17) fencers who finished in the top 25% in their events qualify for the Junior Olympic Championships to be held in Denver, Colorado, February 15-18, 2019. The Men’s Epee title at the 2018 Junior Olympic Championships was won by SoCal’s own Stephen Ewart.

Congratulations to all our qualified fencers and good luck in Denver!

Note: Several items were left in the gym after the tournament: 2 epees, 4 body cords, a mask cord, and a tool kit. Please contact Tigran Shaginian if you believe that any of these items may be yours.

Qualified fencers are listed below. For complete results, see here.

Qualified Fencers - Girls

Qualified Fencers - Boys

Stephen Ewart (Swords/Notre Dame) clinched the Junior Men’s Epee title on Saturday when he defeated number-1 ranked Junior Jonathan Piskovatskov in the finals. This is Stephen’s third gold medal from a national competition in just five months.

Two days after winning the bronze in Cadet Women’s Epee, Claire Beddingfield (LAIFC) captured gold in the Junior event. Claire’s victory marks the third year in a row that the Junior Women’s Epee title went to an LAIFC fencer (Kasia Nixon won in 2016 and 2017). Last October, Claire brought home gold from the Cadet World Cup in Klagenfurt, Austria, beating number-1 seed Eszter Muhari of Hungary in the finals.

The third gold medal went to the LAIFC Women’s Epee Team, who trounced their opponents in every match by a margin of 13 points or more.

Congratulations to all of our Junior Olympians!

SoCal medalists are listed below. Full results can be found here.

SoCal Medalists

Cadet Women’s Epee medalists. 3rd place: Claire Beddingfield (top row, 3rd from left). 6th place: Irene Yeu (bottom row, 2nd from left).

Olivia Chiang (left, AGFC) scores against Emily Yee (D’Asaro) in Junior Women’s Saber action at the 2017 Junior Olympic Qualifier in Thousand Oaks.

Twenty-nine SoCal fencers qualified for the 2018 Junior Olympic Championships at this year’s JO Qualifier at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks on Saturday. The Junior Olympics will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, on February 16-19, 2018. Good luck to all our fencers who participate!

Qualified fencers are listed below. Full results for the tournament can be found here.

Qualified Fencers - Men

Qualified Fencers - Women

Li Meinhold (left, Presidio) prepares an attack against Zachary Wharton (UFA) in Junior Men’s Foil.

Anacan Mangelsdorf (BHFC) lands a touch on the arm of Jai Shourie (LAIFC) in the Cadet Men’s Epee finals.

Theo Funk (Presidio) closes in on Case Avron (LAIFC) in the Cadet Men’s Foil event.

Ryan Tobin (LAIFC) takes a hit from Li Meinhold (Presidio) in the finals of Junior Men’s Foil.

The 2016 Junior Olympic Fencing Championships, Cleveland, Ohio.

Every February, the top Junior and Cadet fencers in the United States gather to compete in what is essentially the National Championships for Under-20 fencers: The Junior Olympics. But this important and prestigious tournament would have never existed if it wasn’t for the vision and determination of one man.

The Junior Olympic Fencing Championships were the brainchild of Rev. Lawrence Calhoun, a name many in the Southern California fencing community will recognize, as he was the fencing coach at Chaminade High School in West Hills from 1987 to 2006 and the founder of the Masque De Fer fencing club. But in 1966, Father Calhoun was just starting his teaching career at Notre Dame High School in Niles, Illinois, when the school’s athletic director asked the staff for suggestions for club activities for the students. Father Calhoun suggested fencing.

Father Calhoun had never been a coach nor a competitive fencer, but he had become acquainted with the sport while serving as chaplain of the fencing team at the University of Notre Dame during his time as a graduate student, there. Much to his surprise, the high school AD instructed him to form a club immediately. So he sent out a call and six students signed up.

Father Calhoun and his fledgling team began frequenting the local YMCA, where his students learned the fundamentals of fencing and he learned to coach. His team lost all of their tournaments that first year, but the next year they went 5-8. By the 4th year the varsity team finished the season with a 15-0 record and were Conference Champions. Before long, Father Calhoun became the head of high school fencing in Illinois, as well as Chairman of the Illinois Division of the Amateur Fencers League of America (now called USA Fencing).

The FIE had been conducting a Junior World Championships every year since 1950. Junior fencers in the US who wished to compete had to go through a very restrictive process that required them to first qualify through their Sectional Championships, then finish in the top three at the US Nationals in June. But the Junior Worlds didn’t take place until April of the next year—ten months later! During this long lag time, it was not uncommon for the young fencers to lose their competitive edge. In addition, fencers who were otherwise qualified, often were over 20 by the time the Junior Worlds came around, so they couldn’t compete. In 1966 the AFLA took the unusual step of changing the Under-20 event at the US Nationals to Under-19. No other country in the world had such an age category.

Father Calhoun could see that the US was not going to get its best representation in international Junior competition unless the system was improved. He came to strongly believe that there was a need for a second National Championships, just for Under-20 fencers, that would take place a few weeks before the Junior Worlds.

Father Calhoun began attending the meetings of the AFLA in New York to present his big new idea, but no one paid much attention to him. The meetings were dominated by mundane budgetary matters. Just as the business portions of the meetings were wrapping up, he would have to catch his plane back to Chicago. This pattern continued for two years without success.

Then, an act of Congress gave Father Calhoun the opportunity he had been waiting for. In 1971, The Uniform Monday Holiday Act went into effect, establishing, among other things, a permanent holiday on the 3rd Monday of every February (which eventually became known as “Presidents’ Day”). That meant there would be a 3-day weekend every year, just two months before the Junior World Championships—perfect timing for a qualification tournament.

Armed with this new angle, he presented his idea once again and this time got the response he had been hoping for. He was named ‘National Junior Olympic Development Chairman,’ and published his proposal in the Nov. 1971 and Jan. 1972 issues of American Fencing. It was too late in the year to take advantage of the Presidents’ Day holiday, so the first Junior Olympic competition was set for April.

On Friday, April 7, 1972, at 9:00 AM, two saber fencers took to the piste and fenced the first bout of the first-ever Junior Olympic Championships. The strips were set up in the gym and cafeteria of the high school where Father Calhoun taught. The NCAA Championships had just taken place at nearby University of Illinois Circle Campus a few weeks earlier, so all of the necessary equipment was readily available. The electric scoring machines were powered by 48 car batteries provided by Sears. The competition, which lasted 3 days, consisted of four Under-20 events: Men’s Foil, Men’s Epee, Men’s Saber, and Women’s Foil. There were a total of 98 entries from 25 divisions. Most of the competitors were housed and fed by local parents.

Father Calhoun presents a trophy to Chris Jennings who won the Junior Men’s Foil and Epee events at the first Junior Olympics in Niles, Ill., April 7-9, 1972.

Los Angeles was the host for the second Junior Olympics in 1973, which were expanded to include Under-16 and Under-14 events. A gifted young fencer from the Los Angeles Athletic Club named Bradley Thomas won the Under-14 gold medals in all three weapons! He was coached by Delmar Calvert. (You can see a recent interview with both of them, here.)

But an incident took place at this competition that put an end to any Under-14 fencing at the Junior Olympics for many years to come. As Father Calhoun recounted, “In a saber bout in which [AFLA president] Steve Sobel was directing, one of the fencers—a really obnoxious little kid—just cussed out Steve, he cussed out his coach and he cussed out his parents! So for several years, this age group was considered too immature.”

In the following years the format settled in on Under-20 and Under-16 events (changed to Under-17 in the late 80’s), although Under-15, Under-13, and Under-11 events were included for a few years in the early 90’s. Since the addition of team events for Junior fencers in 2010, the program has remained consistent.

The Junior Olympics have earned their place as an essential element in the development of world-class fencers in the United States. USFA Vice President Dr. Ralph Zimmermann called the Junior Olympics “the single most important achievement in the entire history of our organization.” In the summer of 2010, Father Calhoun was inducted into the US Fencing Hall of Fame.

The next Junior Olympic Championships will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, on Feb. 16-19, 2018. SoCal fencers who wish to compete should attend the SoCal 2017-2018 JO Qualifiers which will be held at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, on Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017. The top 25% will qualify.

Junior Olympic Champions - Junior Men

Junior Olympic Champions - Junior Women

Junior Olympic Champions - Cadet Men

Junior Olympic Champions - Cadet Women