Last summer, downtown Milwaukee’s Baird Center hosted the Republican National Convention. This week, the convention center has hosted a very different scene — thousands of fencers competing in over 90 different fencing events.
The USA Fencing National Championship started on June 28, and runs through July 7. It is free and open to the public.
Sabers clanged, supporters cheered and announcers called out athlete’s names in the convention center’s huge hall Wednesday. More than 6,000 fencers are competing. The tournament consists of team events as well as individual ones. It’s divided into a wide range of age groups.
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On the younger end of that spectrum was 14-year-old Noah Pe, who’d come to the tournament from San Diego, California. He ate lunch just outside the main hall after a match.
“It’s going OK,” he said. “I feel like my results aren’t the best, but I could definitely do better.”
He said he enjoys fencing for its physical and mental workout.
“You’ve got to think about what your opponent’s doing, and think of a move to counter that. And the physical part’s just, like, doing that move,” he said.
Pe has fenced since he was 7 years old. He said he’s “learned to really love” traveling to competitive tournaments.
Other fencers remarked on the sense of community between fencers who cross paths at tournaments throughout the year. The East and West coasts are well-represented among the tournament’s teams, but several Midwestern teams are there, too, as well as fencers from Canada.
Sharone Huey signed up for the tournament as an individual. The 69-year-old is from New York City. She’s one of many people who stopped fencing after college — at least for a while.
“I was flipping through a book called ‘Growing Old Is Not for Sissies.’ And there was a 60-year-old woman still fencing. I think I was in my thirties or forties, and I’m like, if she can do it, I can do it. So I got back into it,” she said.
She called fencing a “real gentleman’s sport” characterized by politeness.
“It’s not about brute force, you know, it’s the timing, what you see in front of you,” she said.
She came to the tournament with two college fencing friends who are in their seventies.
“I have a friend who started when she was in her sixties, and she’s still competing. It’s never too late to start fencing,” she said.
According to Milwaukee tourism agency Visit Milwaukee, the championship is the first event in the Baird Center’s northern expansion wing.
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