Tim Morehouse Fencing Club Fencer Nickolas Rusadze Wins Gold at USA Fencing's Junior Olympics
DENVER, March 2, 2023 (Newswire.com) - Tim Morehouse Fencing Club announces that South Salem resident Nickolas Rusadze, who trains at the fencing club, is now a Junior Olympic gold medalist.
Competing in the Cadet Men's Foil Championship event at USA Fencing's Junior Olympics, Rusadze won gold in an event that featured 289 of the best Men's Cadet Foil fencers in the country. He trains at the Tim Morehouse Fencing Club in Port Chester, NY with his father and coach, two-time Olympian Slava Grigoriev (Kazakhstan).
Additionally, Rusadze won a fifth-place medal in Junior Men's Foil just two days before.
His cadet win puts the 15-year-old Rusadze in fourth place in the country for the under-17 foil fencers, narrowly missing the cut for the 2023 World Championship Team. His sights are set on making the 2024 World Championship Team.
This win is one of many racked up this season by this 15-year-old. He won gold at the Coupe de Danube 2023 in Bratislava, Slovakia, in the Cadet Men's Foil event in mid-January. Later that month, he won silver in Cadet Men's Foil at the Napoli Cadet International in Italy.
Rusadze, who attends John Jay High School in South Salem, NY, has emerged as one the most dominant cadet fencers in the world. But, his mother Eka Rusade says, "There is always room for improvement," adding, "Nickolas works a lot — he trains six times per week on average, balancing school and practice."
At the Junior Olympics, it is tradition for the coach of the winner to also get a medal. For a son and his father to share this accomplishment, it was a touching moment, particularly when Nickolas placed the medal around his father's neck.
"The time to celebrate has passed," says Grigoriev. "There are many tournaments in front of him and the main focus now is to maintain his level or raise the bar higher."
Rusadze will be back in action starting March 1 at the Junior & Cadet Pan-American Championships in Bogotá, Colombia. He will be representing the United States in the Cadet Men's Foil event.
The foil program at Tim Morehouse Fencing Club is one of the strongest in the country, thanks to Head Foil Coach Slava, who has built this program over the past four years.
Tim Morehouse Fencing Club has won the most National Youth medals for fencing four years in a row. The club has been ranked #1 in producing High School All-Americans three times and regularly places in the top five for most High School Academic All-Americans. Alumni of Tim Morehouse attend top schools around the country including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Notre Dame, MIT, and Penn State.
Tim Morehouse Fencing Club is the premier fencing club in the tri-state area, offering fencing instruction and competitive training in Manhattan, Westchester (Port Chester), and Connecticut (Stamford).
Source: Tim Morehouse Fencing Club
