SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame will be honored with the 2020 USA Fencing Collegiate Impact Award, as announced today by USA Fencing. The award recognizes the top-contributing school on the 2020 U.S. Olympic Fencing Team in Tokyo. As part of the recognition, Matt Weldy, Monogram Club executive director at Notre Dame, will be honored during the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards that will run in conjunction with the National Football Foundation’s 64th Annual Awards celebration on Dec. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas.
“We are honored to receive this award from USA Fencing,” said Notre Dame Head Fencing Coach Gia Kvaratskhelia. “All the credit belongs, of course, to the outstanding young women and men whose talent, hard work, and passion enabled them to realize their Olympic dreams. We are proud to be part of a University who cares about their students’ aspirations and provides all the support possible to enable them to achieve their goals.”
At the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, 22 of 23 athletes (96%) of the U.S. Olympic Fencing Team competed collegiately. Notre Dame had eight athletes on the team – more than any other school – which earned the Fighting Irish the 2020 USA Fencing Collegiate Impact Award. Fighting Irish fencers were well represented on the Olympic medal stand. Lee Kiefer won gold in women’s foil, and two of the four members of the bronze medal-winning men’s foil team are Notre Dame graduates: Nick Itkin and Gerek Meinhardt. Notre Dame’s three fencing medals in Tokyo is more than 28 other countries earned in the entire Tokyo Games.
Notre Dame fencing also sent three other fencers to the Olympic Games in Tokyo. They include Amita Berthier who competed for Singapore; Kaylin Hsieh who competed for Hong Kong, China; and Ewa Nelip Trzebinska who represented Poland.
USA Fencing joins seven other National Governing Bodies that will participate in this year’s Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards – a celebration that will honor sport-specific contributors (NGB Collegiate Impact Awards) and overall Team USA contributors (Team USA Collegiate Impact Awards) to the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
“The numbers don’t lie: collegiate fencing is a proven pathway to the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews. “The world’s best fencers come to the United States to attend prestigious colleges like Notre Dame — places where they receive a top-tier education and train with some of the globe’s finest fencing coaches. For fencers representing Team USA, this makes collegiate fencing the perfect place to prepare themselves to go for gold at the Olympics and Paralympics. In Tokyo, they did just that — with three of our five medalists representing both Team USA and the Fighting Irish.”More information about the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards – and about Team USA’s collegiate footprint in Tokyo – can be found online at TeamUSA.org/CollegiateImpact.