Seth Johnson
In wheelchairs strapped to a metal frame, parafencers lunged forward and leaned back to score and evade hits, waiting for an electronic buzz to announce a point.
The clattering foils sounded throughout last weekend in downtown Gainesville as fencers gathered for a training camp before heading into a busy season of international competition. Participants ranged from a Tokyo Paralympian to fencers with seven months’ experience.
“For the last two years now, we’ve been winning,” national head coach Julio Diaz said to the fencers. “They’re starting to see us again. They’re starting to see the United States as a contender to be contended against.”
The camp happened inside the new Invictus Fencing Club on S. Main Street, just across from the Alachua County Administration Building.
Diaz opened Invictus Fencing Club on Feb. 3 for experienced fencers and first timers, both able-bodied and parafencers. He said the camp marks the first time Florida has hosted the training.
“A lot of these people are now training—deep into trying to make the team,” Diaz said in an interview. “They’re earning points, and almost every month, we’re going somewhere in Europe for the World Cup.”
The International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Cup runs all year and serves as qualifying for the 2024 Paris Paralympics. The next tournament will be in Pisa, Italy, from March 16 to 19—followed by tournaments in France, Poland, Brazil and Thailand.
Shelby Jenson has fenced for seven years, securing seventh place in Tokyo and winning the 2022 national championship in the sabre category. She traveled from Colorado Springs for the training camp.
Jenson competes in the “A” category with a paralyzed right side following a brain aneurism and stroke at age 7. She said her parents pushed her away from binging Netflix and into sports, but nothing clicked until fencing.
Jenson jokes that her favorite part is hitting opponents with a metal stick without consequences. But, despite the obvious physical nature of the sport, she said she enjoys the mental component most.
“It’s like playing active chess where you can predict your opponent—three steps ahead of what they’re actually thinking,” Jenson said.
Noah Hanssen started fencing in 2017 after wanting to try the sport for years. He focuses on the sabre and épée categories.
“It was one of the wheelchair sports that I wanted to try after I was injured, and it just took a while for me to find a coach and a club that was willing to work with me,” Hanssen said.
Hanssen said he’s just now starting to hit the halfway mark in the international rankings, and he wants to continue the forward progress. Even if he loses against an opponent twice, Hanssen said that’s OK if he fenced better.
With years of experience, Hanssen said earning a hit is still satisfying.
“The tactile blocking a hit, attacking and a lot of the mind games that come with that is really engaging to me,” Hanssen said. “But even just the basic, like, ‘I hit someone and I didn’t get hit’ is still really satisfying to me.”
Diaz said the athletes are focused on this year’s World Championships and next year’s Paralympics. But he’s also looking further ahead to the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
As the host country, America can deploy a full squad of 22 fencers by right. Diaz said he needs to recruit more fencers to take full advantage.
One of those could be Jataya Taylor. She started fencing seven months ago after a recommendation from her local Veterans’ Affairs Department in Denver. She said it’s been a good switch for her mental health.
“All the other sports, like basketball, I put all my anger into it,” Taylor said. “But fencing, when I find myself getting frustrated, I just take a deep breath, and it’s actually a really calming sport for me.”
Speaking to the fencers, Diaz said the United States has started to gain respect within the fencing community. The IWAS Cup held this year in Washington, D.C., represented a big step, Diaz said, and the first time America has hosted the cup in 20 years.
He hopes to continue growing the sport, both able-bodied fencing and parafencing, getting more coaches and fencers.
Two coaches from Washington, D.C., Jill Feldman and Allen Evans, visited the Gainesville training camp to learn from Diaz. Both have competed and taught able-bodied fencing and wanted to learn the parafencing side as well.
“The better coaches we get, the better fencers we produce,” Diaz said. “The greater y’all become, the more powerful we become in the area of parafencing.”
Diaz said he hopes the downtown location becomes a parafencing training center. To accomplish that, he’s trying to spread the love for fencing to everyone. The club offers classes for first-time fencers, and Diaz wants to invite different groups to use the space.
Diaz said the parafencing team from the country Georgia will visit for joint training in April.
To learn more, you can visit Invictus Fencing Club.