Lucy Bybee, EFA GA
Dartmouth College
I started fencing on a whim back in 2016, and it’s hard to put into words just how much it’s meant to me. A lot of who I am now has been shaped by my time in the sport and at Elite— I’ve learned resilience, persistence, patience, and confidence both on and off the strip.
It took me a while to start seeing success at tournaments, but through all my frustration and self-doubt, Coach Ahmed and Sherif were there to encourage me and remind me that I got to decide what fencing meant to me. Every loss has a lesson to learn, the most important being that losing isn’t the end of the world.
All of our hard work eventually started showing in numerical results but more importantly, I found passion and joy in what I plan to make a life-time sport. That’s why fencing was a non-negotiable for me when it came time to apply for college. Though I considered offers from a couple of Div 3 schools, I found my home at Dartmouth College, where I am the NCAA fencing club’s armorer and member of the competitive women’s epee squad.
I’ve met so many interesting people through fencing, and made a lot of close friends at Dartmouth because of it. I’d be a very different person without fencing, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who pushed me to be the best fencer (and person!) that I could be.