Welcome to the 2000-2001 Capitol Division fencing season! We think we have created a good schedule for you, and we are looking forward to another great year of fencing.

I would like to congratulate all of our Capitol Division fencers who competed in the U.S. Summer National Championships and Division I Championships this past July in Austin, Texas. Twenty-nine of our Division’s fencers traveled to Austin, where they competed in a total of 35 events. Eight of them came home with ndividual medals (see results on page 2), and Senta Breden of DCFC earned the gold medal in Division II Women’s Foil, finishing ahead of 116 other competitors. DCFC’s Women’s Épée Team also regained the crown it had last worn in 1992, when the team of Julia Leszko, Kristin Foellmer Suchorski, and Marie-Sophie Tar won the gold medal in that event. And Jim Adams and Bettie Graham will be going to compete in the upcoming Veterans World Championships to be held in Hungary. Congratulations to you all!

We have many good events lined up for this season, including our always-popular Chesapeake Challenge Circuit of tournaments, which we share with the Harrisburg, Maryland, and Virginia Divisions. This past season, our own Chesapeake Challenge event, the Cherry Blossom, attracted almost 150 fencers. If you have not competed in one of them before, we hope to see you this year. The first of these will be the Susquehanna Open in Harrisburg, PA (October 28-29).

Speaking of seeing you, if you come to one of our regular season events at Forest Glen Fencing Center – home of DC Fencers Club – we think you will like what you see. The venue has now been greatly expanded, and we will have a minimum of eight electric pistes for competitions. There is much more floor space.

If you have competed in the past, we will look forward to seeing you again soon. And if you have never entered a tournament before, this is the season you should start! Good fencing to all.

Janusz Smolenski, Chairman, Capitol Division, USFA