The US Fencing Association (USFA) has announced the national coaching positions for the current Olympic quaddrenial leading up to the London 2012 Olympics. These coaches will be responsible for coaching and leading the individual weapon squads leading up to and including the London 2012 Olympics.
Ed Korfanty and Yury Gelman continue in their leadership of the Men’s and Women’s Sabre programs,
In a release to Fencing.Net, the USFA released the names of the national coaches along with a bit of biographical data:
[Note: This article has been edited to reflect the announcement on July 30th that Buckie Leach has decided not to accept the women’s foil coaching position. ]
{sidebar id=1}Returning from the last quadrienniel are Ed Korfanty for Women’s Saber and Yury Gelman for Men’s Saber. Each of these coaches need no introduction and they have both had previous medal results in the Beijing or the Athens Olympics and bring the highest level of coaching experience and expertise to the National Team Program.
Newly hired coaches include:
Roberto Solbavarro – Women’s Epee
Mauro Hamza – Men’s Foil
Sebastien Dos Santos – Men’s Epee
The Women’s Foil position remains unfilled.
Each of the newly hired coaches bring outstanding previous experience with international fencing at all levels including world cups, world championships and the Olympics.
Roberto Solbavarro has also previously been the National Coach for Women’s Epee for the USFA and most recently was the coach who led the Junior National Team to a world championship in 2008 and a second place in 2009. His teams and students have consistently placed internationally and recently one of his students won the USA National Championship in Women’s Epee.
Mauro Hamza has been involved in Men’s foil ever since being an international competitor for Egypt when he was an athlete. He has been a frequent team coach for the Men’s Foil Program on international trips and his students and teams have won numerous medals both domestically and internationally. The National Team Program will benefit from his fair and calm demeanor, tactical and technical expertise and ability to work with athletes and coaches from all over the USA.
Sebastien Dos Santos has been involved in fencing and modern pentathlon his entire life. He has coached and competed in pentathlon in France and Brazil and was the Olympic Pentathlon coach for Brazil in 2008 and for France in 2004. His depth of experience in coaching and international epee fencing is outstanding and he has medal level experience coaching epee teams at the world championship level. We are excited to have his expertise as the Men’s Epee coach.