Fencing to a World Championship

Over spring break, senior Ryanne Leslie traveled to Plovdiv, Bulgaria to compete in the Under 20 (Junior) World Championships. USA Fencing sends its top four ranked athletes in each of the three weapons (foil, epee, saber) to compete in this prestigious event. Ryanne qualified as a member of the Women's Foil World Championship Team.

In the individual event, she did not get the result she hoped for, but she made a huge comeback for the women's foil team event. Her #1 world-ranked team fought hard throughout each of their direct elimination rounds against #33 Tunisia, #16 Canada, #9 Japan, #29 China, and #2 Italy.

The team had a rough start in the gold-medal match against Italy. The Italian team led by as many as five points for half of the match, a deficit that can be extremely difficult to recover from in high-level fencing. Ryanne did not give up and made a 9-point comeback to put Team USA in the lead, followed by amazing fencing from all three of her teammates. In the end, they clinched the Under 20 world championship title by a score of 45-33!

Way to go, Ryanne and Team USA!