The annual Amazon Open Tournament will be held on Sunday, June 4, at DCFC's Forest Glen Fencing Center.
The 20th annual Amazon Open will have medals awarded down to 8th place, with special prizes awarded to the top finishers. This has been one of the strongest women's epee tournaments in the mid-Atlantic and typically draws fencers from all over the country. We are also pleased to offer a women's sabre event.
You may register on site the morning of the event, but it will help to make the tournament run more smoothly if you preregister. Entry fee is $45.00 per event, cash or check only.
Senior Women's Epee registration closes at 9:30am.
Senior Women's Saber registration closes at 2:00pm.
Preregister on AskFRED.
The annual Captain Steere Open Mixed Epee will be held on Sunday, June 11, at DCFC's Forest Glen Fencing Center.
The Open Mixed Epee competition will close registration at 10:00am.
Richard C. Steere, a retired Navy captain who was the weather expert for General George S. Patton during the Anglo-American landing in North Africa in November 1942 and a member of a bronze medal-winning U.S. fencing team at the 1932 Summer Olympics, died March 17, 2001 of pneumonia at Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham, Virginia. The longtime McLean resident was 92.
Off the coast of Morocco, Patton and other aides expressed pessimism at the heavy seas and what it meant for a landing that was the opening of a new theater of operations during World War II. But Capt. Steere, then a Navy meteorologist, steeled Patton's resolve with a forecast that, though at odds with information from London and Washington, proved correct. This feat earned him the fiery general's confidence and the nickname "Commander Houdini."
Captain Steere was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Chicago. He learned the rudiments of fencing from a drama professor at the University of Chicago, where his brother was a student. Capt. Steere was on a fencing team at the Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1931. With his lightning-quick hand movements, he was named to the foil team that won a medal at the Los Angeles Olympics.
At the Olympics, the U.S. team tied for first, which resulted in an elimination round. American sports pages were filled with stories of the competition, since, during the early rounds, the American foil team had beaten the storied French team for the first time.
Capt. Steere received a master's degree in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. After the Africa landing, he was promoted and served at various command posts predicting weather conditions for naval actions. He was among the Navy group that forecast surf and swell conditions for the D-Day landing at Normandy.
After the war, he taught at the Naval Academy, commanded the Bainbridge Naval Training Station in Maryland and commanded two destroyers, the New Kent and the Porter. He retired from the Navy in 1961 and moved to McLean.
From the 1950s into the 1980s, he was a fixture at the Naval Academy, where he taught and fenced with young midshipmen. Fit and compact, he fenced into his late seventies and won various titles of the Amateur Fencers League of America, which became the United States Fencing Association. With his eyesight failing, his last recorded tournament victory was in 1989. He loved fencing, he told an interviewer, because it was a "complex puzzle."
Preregister at AskFRED.
The Capital Fencing Academy will host a Mixed Sabre Open event on Saturday, June 17. The competition will close registration at 2:00pm.
Preregister at AskFRED.
The annual meeting of the members of the Capitol Division will be held on Sunday, June 18, at 1:00pm. The meeting will be held online. If you are interested in attending, please email Arnold Wynn (arnold@wynnempire.com).
Agenda
The nominees for the 2023-2024 season are:
Petitions for other nominees may be submitted up to 72 hours before the annual meeting (see Article VII, Section 4, of the Capitol Division By-Laws).
Changes to the bylaws at the annual meeting are subject to a vote of Capitol Division members in good standing and 18 or older as of the annual meeting. Capitol Division members interested in attending to vote on the bylaws should be prepared to verify their identity and eligibility, such as by photo ID, membership card, or similar documents.
The annual Tune-Up Open will be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 24 and 25, at DCFC's Forest Glen Fencing Center.
On Saturday, June 24, Open Mixed Foil will close registration at 3:00pm and Open Mixed Sabre will close registration at 5:00pm. The Open Mixed Epee competition will close registration at 9:00am on Sunday, June 25.
Preregister at AskFRED.
The first Champagne Challenge of the 2023-2024 season will be held on Sunday, August 20, at DCFC's Forest Glen Fencing Center.
The Open Mixed Epee competition will close registration at 10:00am.
Make sure that your US Fencing membership has been renewed for the 2023-2024 season. Preregister at AskFRED.
The Capitol Division Executive Committee is committed to increasing the number of rated referees within the division.
To support this goal, the Committee has voted to reimburse any Capitol Division member's referee clinic fees and testing fees if they pass the written test and practical exam and successfully earn a referee rating. Travel and hotel expenses are not reimbursable, only the fees for the clinic and test. Verification of the rating earned and documentation of the testing fees should be sent to the Division Treasurer.
In addition, the Capitol Division will reimburse the $35.00 membership upgrade fee for new referees (and those who have just turned age 18).
For the 2022-2023 season, the Capitol Division is pleased to make international competition travel grants of $400.00 available to individual fencers who are members of the Division. These grants are being made to fulfill our mission, as outlined in our bylaws, to assist Divisional fencers to reach their full potential in fencing. These grants are available to reimburse expenses related to competing in cadet, junior, and senior US Fencing designated international competitions and at Veteran World Championships and to attending those same competitions as a member of the official US Fencing delegation.
Fencers are eligible for one grant per season. Grants are available for expenses not fully reimbursed from other sources.
In order to receive these grants, eligible fencers should submit the Capitol Division International Competition Grant Application to the Capitol Division's Developmental Committee with copies of all the relevant receipts. Reimbursements for expenses will be disbursed by the Treasurer of the Capitol Division.
Deadlines for filing applications for the 2022-2023 season:
Application and receipts should be e-mailed to capdivgrants@gmail.com or mailed to:
For the 2022-23 season, the Capitol Division is pleased to make developmental grants of $300.00 available to the member clubs. Member clubs are eligible for developmental grants every other season. These grants are being made to fulfill our purposes and objectives as outlined in our bylaws, in particular our missions to support, enhance and develop the sport of fencing and to assist Divisional fencers to reach their full potential in fencing. These grants should not be used for ordinary club expenses such as rent or US Fencing membership; rather the clubs should use these funds to enhance the experience of Divisional fencers in the spirit of our bylaws. One grant will be available to each club.
The list below gives a few examples of ways that these funds could be used. This list includes suggestions, but the committee is open to other uses:
In order to receive these grants, the club representative should submit a proposal on the Capitol Division Developmental Grant Application to the Capitol Division's Developmental Committee. The proposal will be submitted to the rest of the Executive Committee. If the proposal is approved, the club representative should submit receipts for the expenses covered by the grant and a check will be sent to the member club.
The grant application form and receipts should be e-mailed to capdivgrants@gmail.com or mailed to:
The deadline for grant application is June 15, 2023.
Below is a list of the rated referees (from the US Fencing Referee Database) who are members of Capitol Division and are listed as "Good-to-Go" (as of 2023-04-08). Note: to be listed as GTG, referees must sign the referee contract on their USA Fencing profile page.
The Referees’ Commission has realigned referee ratings to match requirements for local, regional and national events. Moving away from the current ratings of P for having passed exams in a particular weapon, and the 10 – 1 scale — with the lower number representing the higher level of the referee — the new rating scale is:
Note: R1 rated referees are eligible for selection to referee at national events, depending on tournament needs.
N2 and N1 ratings will be awarded during the annual Referees’ Commission meeting.
| First Name | Last Name | Foil | Epee | Sabre |
| Abigail | Benson-McCarthy | R1 | ||
| Karen | Brasted | R2 | R1 | |
| Broghan | Bukowski | R2 | ||
| Mathew | Chin | L2 | L1 | |
| Elliott | Clinton | N2 | N1 | |
| Nicolas | Del Vecchio | R1 | ||
| Asif | Dhar | R2 | ||
| Lily | Elnaggar | L1 | L1 | |
| Jill | Feldman | R1 | R1 | L1 |
| Nicholas | Ferrara | N2 | N2 | N2 |
| Sreehitha | Gandluri | R1 | R1 | |
| Ken | Gauvey | L2 | L2 | |
| Kieran | Gauvey | L1 | ||
| Bobby | Gibbs | N1 | N2 | R2 |
| Soraya | Henry | L2 | ||
| Nicolas | Hensal | L1 | ||
| Calvin | Hodges | R2 | ||
| Ryan | Hrapsky | L2 | R1 | L2 |
| Katelyn | Keegan | L2 | ||
| Robert | Klebs | L2 | R2 | |
| David | Knizhnik | L1 | ||
| Andrei | Nazlymov | R2 | ||
| Tatiana | Nazlymov | R2 | ||
| Malcolm | Patterson | L1 | R1 | L1 |
| David | Ruskin | L1 | R1 | L1 |
| Joseph | Simak | L2 | L1 | |
| Brianna | Smith | N2 | N2 | N2 |
| Faddey | Soldatov | R2 | R1 | |
| Fen | Tamulonis | R1 | N2 | |
| Brent | Weil | L1 | ||
| Ignacy | Wozniak | L1 | ||
| Evan | Yee | L2 | ||