Alliance Fencing Academy

We’re less than a week away from World Championships!

We are immensely proud of our five fencers who qualified. They will be representing their nations at the most competitive event of the year and vying for the senior world champion titles! 🤺🤺🤺

Epee events will be fenced July 22nd through 26th. Cheer our Alliance athletes on and watch the FencingTV.com livestream!

What more can we say? Alliance killed it at the 2026 Summer Nationals! Congrats to our coaches and fencers on making great results happen time and time again!

**Yellow neck ribbon on medal denotes national championship event

Alliance medal recap ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Cadet Women’s Epee:
GOLD - Chloe Tolsma
BRONZE - Vivian Liscum

Division 1 Men’s Epee:
BRONZE - Simon Lioznyansky

Junior Men’s Epee:
GOLD - Caleb Eskridge
SILVER - Elijah Imrek

Division 1-A Women’s Epee:
6th - Queenie Hausheer

Veteran-70 Men’s Epee:
6th - Dwain Blakely

Cadet Men’s Epee:
BRONZE - Kyle Elhusseini
6th - Miron Lioznyansky

Division 1-A Men’s Epee:
GOLD and National Champion - Alex Fray
BRONZE - Benjamin Ibanez

Senior Team Women’s Epee:
SILVER - Alliance Blue (Chloe Tolsma, Ari Rausch, Vicki Zhang, Melinda Yao)

Y14 Women’s Epee:
5th - Liah Chernis

Division II Men’s Epee:
BRONZE - Tarik Yilmaz

Y10 Women’s Epee:
SILVER - Ashley Xiao

Y12 Men’s Epee:
8th - Andy Li
The team who won gold in Senior Men’s Teams Epee featured many present (Oleg Knysh, Elijah Imrek) and former Alliance members (Ari Simmons) as well

Kelley Hurley OLY has been inducted into the USA Fencing Hall of Fame for her achievements as one of the most successful American women’s épéeists in recent history!

She competed at 4 Olympic Games between 2008 and 2021, including winning a historic team bronze medal in London, which was the first in American women’s épée history. Kelley has previously won junior world championships (twice), was a 4x All-American at Notre Dame, and a multi-time national champion. Congratulations on your amazing career Kelley! ☝️💪

This marks the second Alliance member to enter the Hall of Fame after Coach Andrey Geva received the honor in 2024 and is a testament to the long standing success of our fencing club. 👏👏👏

Our crew of Alliance fencers, coaches, parents, and family members worked together to have yet another amazing Summer Nationals.

These 10 days in Portland had events varying from Youth-10 to Veteran-80, Senior Teams to Division III, and Alliance found success on all fronts, raking in a record breaking 17 medals 😳😊👏

What we appreciate most, however, is the supportive environment our young fencers have created for each other. We see it in teammates cheering each other on from the stands, and always ready with a smile.

We ended the 2025-26 domestic season with a bang, onto the next season! We wish all a great summer and can’t wait to see you for International Camp August 7-11th 🤺

PS: stay tuned for Senior World Championships taking place in Hong Kong starting July 22nd — where Alliance has 5 fencers qualified!

To close out the last days of Summer Nationals, we celebrate two more Alliance youth medals here in Portland! We are immensely proud of all your achievements!

In Y10 Women’s Epee, Ashley Xiao made a fantastic performance for the silver medal! Congrats on this great capstone result in your last Y10 competition!🥈

Out of 239 fencers in the Y12 Men’s Epee event, Andy Li won an 8th place medal! Great way to finish out Y12 before the age-up to Y14! 💪💪

What a day for Alliance on Day 5 of Summer Nationals! Two finals strip appearances and smiles all around in Portland, Oregon! 🌲🤺🏆

Alex Fray became the Division 1-A National CHAMPION after clinching gold, while Benjamin Ibanez won a spectacular bronze medal - in a field of 186 competitors! We are proud of Alex making achievements both as a coach and fencer, and Ben earning his A26 rating. Congratulations 🎉 🥇🥉

We fielded three teams in Senior Teams Women’s Epee, including Team Blue who fenced all the way through to the final for silver! Great work to Ari Rausch, Vicki Zhang, Chloe Tolsma, and Melinda Yao on the medal. In the final, the team notably fenced against our good Alliance friend Anna van Brummen, who made up part of the Team USA squad that is preparing for the upcoming Senior World Championships.🥈💙

Go Alliance!

It’s Day 6 of Summer Nationals and Alliance is performing stronger than ever. 💪💪

Liah Chernis claimed 5th place in Y14 Women’s Epee amid a competitive field of 270 fencers. It’s a great finish to youth competition as this was the last youth-14 tournament for our 2011 birth year athletes. See you in cadet next year!

Tarik Yilmaz took home a bronze medal in Division II Men’s Epee today, which had 260+ competing! We are proud of your fantastic finish! 🥉
Great work to Tyler Parks-Good who made top 16 of the same event.

That makes for 4 days remaining to Summer Nationals, the largest tournament of the year! Good luck to our youth fencers competing in the coming days 🍀

What a weekend for Alliance! 🤺✨

Every one of our Senior Women’s Epee teams brought some serious heat 🔥 and Alliance BLUE came home with SILVER!

Great job girls! 💪💪💪 photos: Eliana Geva 🩷

Three more podium finishes for Alliance on Day 4 of this year’s summer nationals! Congratulations and keep up all your spectacular work!

VET 70 MEN’S EPEE:
6th - Dwain Blakely

CADET MEN’S EPEE:
Bronze - Kyle Elhusseini
6th - Miron Lioznyansky
Additional congrats to Miron on earning an A26 rating!

DIV 1 WOMEN’S EPEE:
Top 16 - Chloe Tolsma
Top 16 - Anna van Brummen

3 Alliance medals, 400+ registrations for certain events, and friendly-finals in the Pacific Northwest for Day 3 of 2026 Summer Nationals! Here’s a recap of what Alliance was up to ⬇️⬇️⬇️

JUNIOR MEN’S EPEE
We saw Caleb Eskridge and Elijah Imrek sharing the finals strip in Junior Men’s Epee. After an intense bout, Caleb claimed gold and Elijah clinched silver. An Alliance-Alliance final is always exciting to see and a testament to our club’s success. Congrats to our boys and to Coach Dorian having two of his students on top of the podium!🥇🥈

Great work to Kyle Elhusseini finishing in the top 16s of the same event!

DIV 1-A WOMEN’S EPEE
Queenie Hausheer prevailed in a field of 120 fencers to win a terrific 6th place medal in Div 1-A Women’s Epee! Congratulations on this achievement!

Last slide: extra photo from our Senior Men’s Epee Team gold medalists who won on Day 2