Club News

      It has been a tremendously successful first year that started on a cold November day, 2012, with about twenty people, all Daniel’s old students.

Hammering and painting together, in less than four weeks, we transformed that old workshop in a large fencing salle,  with bouncy floors, fifteen, blue and red marked up strips, state of the art equipment, a welcoming lounge, where we had all of our fun parties, celebrating each step of the way, birthday after birthday, event after event.

Today –  and eighty more members later,  we believe that, with every day in the club  and long nights of work from home,  we managed to make Olympia a highly popular, sought for and fun place to fence!

  We made friends, built relationships, created a great fencing family, where all the kids can grow, as fencers, athletes, as well as individuals, inspired by the oldest and more experienced ones.

We’re proud and thankful to each and every one of you, as we believe that we’ve been blessed to have had the best people crossing out door step!

Our adult members – we’re thrilled to see how, after watching your kids/siblings fence, you felt attracted by the magic of this sport and gave fencing a chance – we’re the only  club around to have such an adult rate attendance and maybe the only one with an amazing sibling ratio!

Kudos to Harris family – mom and dad following in their two daughters steps, Angelica Brisk, Natalia Stavisky, taking up fencing after their talented daughters, the three Moustakas – father and two sons, George Scott, fencing altogether with his son, Noah, Onno and Neil Hommes, Brad and Isabel Kain,  Vermeule brother and sister, Weller sisters, Nowland family, Newbery brothers, Mendoza sisters, Haferd and Feldman, brother and sister, Coumans and Green brothers! How wonderful is that??

  

Special thanks to Cristina Gordet, our World Veterans Bronze Medalist, for her achievement and to being such an inspiration to everyone, the living example that you can, if you really want to!

Above her results in fencing, her love for the sport, loyalty to the club and her coach, her knowledge in the field are beyond our words.

  Special thanks to George Scott, for his always high spirit, support and advice – from helping with marketing materials, warm ups ordering, running tournaments, numerous donations and just by having his joyful personality around, makes our day!

We’ll always think kindly about our “Ale” – Maria Alejandra Trumble, great student, awesome person, fencing with Daniel since she a little kid.

Although she left us, this fall, to pursue her journalism career, to the University of Pennsylvania, she trained until the very last day, taking all her classes, all her lessons, all the way to her last hour home – she’s an inspiration to a lot of our young ones.

Alejandra, both her parents and her younger sister, were our strength pillars, way before Olympia and remained the same until present days. From the bottom of our hearts, we warmly thank them all.

Zach Boynton and Stefan Mesarovich, other two people dear to our hearts, both grew up under Daniel’s eyes and blossomed in these beautiful young men – they both left to continue their education but are always back, to the club, any chance they get.

  

Both got their hands and feet dirty, cut, ment, painted, sweat a little, laughed a little, left their legacy in the great walls of Olympia – thank you, our boys!

Irene Ghazaleh – one of our dearest “Fencing Moms”, besides giving us her two talented kids, as part of our team,  we’d like to thank her for her wonderful ideas, for  handing out flyers, letting the word out, helping with the lounge furnishing, seasonal decorating and so much more.

   

The Hofmann‘s – you’d think that a successful architect and a fencing club have nothing in common?? You might just be wrong! Special, special thanks to Mr. Werner Hoffman, getting his hands dirty and pretty much,  putting walls down, then building others up, reinventing, refreshing and giving our club a whole new structure – thank you, for an amazing job!

  Mr. Mark Mansoor – new addition to our fencing family – warm thanks for your talent and for sharing with us all those wonderful pictures – the fencing world can’t be grateful enough for you swiping the floor, in the weirdest positions, trying to capture the best image of our fencing kids!

Pavel Nabutovsky, Paul Thordarson – our awesome fencers and computer guys – thank you for your support related to …well – computers – your work and advice was priceless to us!

Onno Hommes, painting with us since day one – thanks for your help with the scoring system, Domenico Mastrototaro, for your donations and long-lasting friendship, our coaches – Scott Foster, Lori Schmidt, Nadia Eldeib, for their support and being there when we need you.

               

Last but not least, special thanks to Mark Elbag, for sticking with us, from day one to the present, devoting long hours of work, shoulder to shoulder with Daniel, to building our amazing floors and pretty much everything around the club – we’re happy to have known you, as a young adult and seen you becoming a very responsible, able to count on and  successful fencer and coach!

We hope no one was left behind, you’re all in our hearts and we try our best to give back to you.

Thank you all for making Olympia the cheerful, warm place that is today, to be part of our fencing family, to try your best, train your hardest, represent your club with proudness, for all your help and support!

Thank you all for a great, first year, for all your hard work, dedication and loyalty – we’re looking forward to see you all to our celebration party, this December!

We’re here to stay and we’re glad to have you on board with us!