As one of Canada’s top fencers, Shaul Gordon treasures his time at home.
It’s a chance to catch up with family and friends — even provide a lesson or two for his younger sister Tamar back at the club that has meant so much to his career.
“She is competing in her first North American Cup in November and we are all excited for her,” he smiled.
Gordon has since returned to Montreal where the 23-year-old Richmond native is entering his second-year of law school at Laval University and continuing a journey that he hopes will take him to the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Toyko.
The move back east was necessary to train with fellow members of the national sabre team at the Institut National du Sport du Quebec — the province’s version of the Olympic Oval — which happens to be just a 10-minute train ride from Laval.
In fact, Gordon is currently the only athlete from B.C. on the national team in any of the sport’s three disciplines that also features epee and foil.
His busy summer schedule included helping Canada win silver in the team event at the Pan Am Championships that happened to take place in Montreal. He was also eighth in the individual competition.
Gordon was then off to Germany for the World Fencing Championships for the fifth consecutive year.
The opportunity to compete in Montreal and in front of a hometown crowd was similar to what he encountered two years earlier when he was also a member of Canada’s silver medal winning sabre team at the Pan American Games in Toronto. For an unheralded sport, at least in North America, it’s moments like that you savour.
“That experience in Toronto was unbelievable, Gordon reflected. “People from all around the city came out to watch and cheered us on. It’s something we don’t experience that often in our sport. It was more of the same in Montreal and it really does make a difference.”
Gordon’s passion for fencing might just be in his blood.
The sport is very popular in Europe and he happened to live in Italy until he was 10. There was even a fencing tradition on his mom’s side of the family.
Gordon took it up when he was seven and it soon was his favourite over the other sports his parents urged him to try. However, he would hit a potential crossroad three years later when his family moved to Canada.
“At the time, we weren’t even sure if there were any fencing clubs or if I even could keep doing it,” Gordon recalled.
Fortunately, the Gordons settled in Richmond which also happened to be home of the Dynamo Fencing Club.
Shaul began working with club founder and national team coach Victor Gantsevich and was on his way to becoming one of the top up-and-coming fencers in the country.
Even then, it took plenty of travelling to ensure his progress, often driving to Seattle for weekend competitions. He spent his entire Grade 10 year in Montreal where he improved his French and trained with other top fencers in the sabre discipline to secure his national team status.
Once Gordon graduated from Richmond Secondary, he applied at several U.S. schools with a reputation for their fencing programs and was accepted into Penn State University.
He enjoyed an All-American freshman season for the Nittany Lions then took his career three hours away — this time at Penn University where he eventually earned a degree in political science. He also continued to thrive in the NCAA environment, as a perennial First Team Ivy League member.
“Penn State was arguably the best or second best fencing school in the U.S. but I chose to (transfer) to Penn for the academics,” explained Gordon. “The NCAA experience was great. The fall semester was pretty relaxed and there were a lot of competitions in the winter, usually every other weekend.
“The beauty of the NCAA systems is it’s so supportive — the school and the fencing program. They make it very accommodating for you so are in a good position to balance both.”
Sometime in the fall of 2019, Gordon will have earned his law degree at McGill. That will free up his time for one final push at qualifying for the 2020 Olympics.
“That’s the goal,” he added. “At one time I had a legitimate shot at making the Rio (Olympics) but I was preparing for graduation from Penn. “We now have three years and things are looking good for us now. We are all young and healthy.
“This year was an up and down one for me but I was also working on a few things. (Three years before the next Olympics) is the time to be doing that.”
