En garde! Female fencer lunges to Junior Olympics

When the sport of fencing was first mentioned to Sarah Wagner, she thought of it as nothing more than an interesting activity.

"My brother wanted to try it," she recalled. "I thought it sounded pretty fun so I just did it by chance and wound up loving it."

Not only did she fall in love with fencing, but she became very good at it, very quickly. 

Sarah, 15, has been fencing only since September and has already been named to compete in the U.S. Fencing Association's Junior Olympics Champion-ships.

It did not take very long for her to realize her potential. She first became aware of how good she was "about a month into it."

The defining moment came in a match against a rival fencer who had bested Sarah several times before.

"I won against this one girl I could not win against" previously, she said. "That's when I thought, 'Wow, I can really do this!'"

Giving a stab
Shortly thereafter, the idea of the Junior Olympic Championships came up.
"Mr. McDarby, my coach, told me about it so I went down to Poughkeepsie and tried out and made it."

Sarah, who is home schooled, and her family attend St. Mary's Church in Amsterdam. She told The Evangelist that her faith has played a role in her success.

"God helped me," she stated. "He definitely did."

She hopes that God will continue to help her, through the Junior Olympic Championships and beyond.

"I definitely would want to do this through college," she said.

The Olympic Championships will take place Feb. 13-16 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sarah will be competing in the "epée" championships. 

The epée - French for "sword" - is one of three weapons used in fencing, along with a foil and a sabre. Measuring about 90 centimeters and weighing under a pound (an epée can weigh anywhere from 350 to 770 grams), it is actually the heaviest of the three.

Say touché
But of all the mathematical measurements and dimensions involved in fencing, the only ones Sarah is concerned about are the amount of time and number of touches it takes for her to defeat her opponent.

While she is excited for her accomplishments and about traveling to the champion-ships next month, Sarah continues to prepare. 

Still, she is more certain than worried. When asked if she had faced competition at this high of a level before, she did not hesitate.

"Yes," she said with a nod and a confident chuckle. "Oh, yeah."

(1/15/09)