The Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) was the oldest collegiate fencing conference in the United States. It was affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
In its final season, the IFA had 11 members. Cornell only competed in women's fencing; the remaining 10 teams participated with men's and women's teams
All of the Ivy universities with Division I fencing programs were also members of the IFA. Dartmouth College does not have a varsity fencing program.
The 2007 IFA Championship tournament was hosted by Princeton University on Saturday March 3, 2007. Because no suitable venue at Princeton was available, the tournament was held nearby at the Lawrenceville School.
There were 9 trophies given to teams at the annual IFA Championships in the following categories:
In 1994 Stephen Kovacs (1972–2022), a Columbia saber fencer and later a fencing coach, became the first fencer to win four consecutive IFA championships. [1] [2]
Among these awards, the most prestigious was the trophy given to the Men's Foil team champion. This trophy is known as the Little Iron Man and, at the time, was the oldest trophy still awarded for any collegiate sport in the United States. It was cast in 1893 and had been awarded to the IFA Men's Foil team champion since 1896.
The 2008 IFA Championship Tournament was hosted by Columbia University on Sunday February 24, 2008.
The 2009 IFA Championship Tournament was hosted by Brandeis University on Saturday, February 28, 2009. It was the final one held.
Until the end of the IFA tournament, the Little Iron Man was the oldest trophy still awarded in collegiate sports.
It was awarded each year to the team that won the Men's Foil competition at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association championships.
The trophy was cast in 1893 and was awarded to the IFA Men's Foil team champion since 1896. It currently resides at the University of Pennsylvania.
Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. The three disciplines of modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre ; each discipline uses a different kind of blade, which shares the same name, and employs its own rules. Most competitive fencers specialise in one discipline. The modern sport gained prominence near the end of the 19th century and is based on the traditional skill set of swordsmanship. The Italian school altered the historical European martial art of classical fencing, and the French school later refined that system. Scoring points in a fencing competition is done by making contact with an opponent.
The Harvard Crimson is the nickname of the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country. Like the other Ivy League colleges, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships.
The Cornell Big Red is the informal name of the sports and other competitive teams that represent Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The university sponsors 37 varsity sports, and several intramural and club teams. Cornell participates in NCAA Division I as part of the Ivy League.
The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is Peter Pilling.
Soren Hunter Miles S Thompson is an American épée fencer, team world champion, and two-time Olympian. He represented the United States in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, where he reached the quarterfinals and came in 7th, the best US result in the event since 1956 and at the time the second-best US result of all time. He also represented the US in the 2012 Olympics in London. Thompson won a gold medal and world championship in the team épée event at the 2012 World Fencing Championships. He was inducted into the USA Fencing Hall of Fame in 2018, and the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2020.
The Navy Midshipmen are the athletic teams that represent the United States Naval Academy. The academy sponsors 36 varsity sports teams and 12 club sport teams. Both men's and women's teams are called Navy Midshipmen or Mids. They participate in the NCAA's Division I, as a non-football member of the Patriot League, a football-only member of the American Athletic Conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), and a member of the Collegiate Sprint Football League (men), Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (men), Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges, Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League (men), Mid-Atlantic Squash Conference (men) and Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association. Navy is also one of approximately 300 members of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
Byron Lester Krieger was an American foil, sabre and épée fencer. Krieger represented the United States in the Olympics in 1952 in Helsinki and 1956 in Melbourne, and in the 1951 Pan American Games where he won two gold medals.
Julia Jones-Pugliese was an American national champion foil and épée fencer and fencing coach.
NYU Violets is the nickname of the sports teams and other competitive teams at New York University. The school colors are purple and white. Although officially known as the Violets, the school mascot is a bobcat. The Violets compete as a member of NCAA Division III in the University Athletic Association conference. The university sponsors 23 varsity sports, as well as club teams and intramural sports.
Collegiate fencing in the United States can be traced back to as early as 1941. Some of the earliest programs in the US came from the Ivy League schools, with the first Ivy League fencing championships taking place in 1956. As of 2023, there are 112 club teams, 43 women's varsity fencing programs and 33 men's varsity teams in the US. Both clubs and varsity teams participate in the sport, however only the varsity teams may participate in the NCAA championship tournament. Due to the limited number of colleges that have fencing teams, NCAA fencing combines the three divisions into a combined National Collegiate sport, all participating in one NCAA Championship.
Ferenc Marki was an internationally known fencing master and fencing coach.
Timothy Frank Morehouse is an American fencer who won a Silver Medal competing in the men's sabre as a member of the United States fencing team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Morehouse is coached by Yury Gelman. He is the founder of the Fencing in the Schools program.
Christopher Stuart O'Loughlin is an American Olympic épée fencer.
The Harvard Crimson fencing team is the intercollegiate fencing team for Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The team competes in the Ivy League within the NCAA Division I. The university first fielded a team in 1888.
The NCAA Fencing Championships are awarded at the annual tournament held in March to determine the NCAA's national collegiate individual and team championships in fencing. Individual champions are determined by performance during the NCAA fencing team championship competition. Unlike most NCAA sports, the fencing championship is a single National Collegiate championship rather than being split into divisions.
Eric Tennyson Sollee was an American fencer and fencing coach. He fenced at Harvard University, where he earned National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) All-America honors. He coached at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, and the Carroll Center for the Blind, among others. As a coach, he is notable for finding ways to quickly develop competitive fencers and for introducing a paradigm shift in how to fence against classical fencers. Sollee trained a number of top competitors, including Olympians.
The Ukrainian Fencing Federation commonly known by the acronym NFFU, established in 1992, is the governing body of Ukrainian fencing. Through 2022, Ukrainian fencers won 230 medals combined in the Olympic Games, World championships, and European championships.
Michel Sebastiani is a French fencing master. He earned his Maîtrise d'Escrime degree from Ecole Superieure d’Escrime in Paris. Sebastiani then coached fencing at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and Princeton University. He was an Olympic coach for Team USA. He twice won the U.S. Fencing Coaches Association's Schreff Award, given yearly to the most outstanding college fencing coach of the year. Sebastiani was inducted into the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame in 2015.
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