GREENWICH — Kyle Fallon isn’t afraid to spar with a world champion or face off towards Olympians. Her dream is to someday be on the prime of her sport, however first, she is targeted on moving into the precise faculty.
Fallon, a 16-year-old Greenwich resident, started fencing when she was 7 and entered her first match a 12 months later. Now, she has dozens of medals and wins from three World Cups.
“Earlier than COVID, I used to be making an attempt to not lose. However as soon as I began fencing to win, I really began successful,” she mentioned. “I really feel like fencing is extra psychological than bodily generally.”
In USA Fencing’s cadet standings, Fallon is ranked third for ladies’s epee, which is a kind of fencing. The cadet circuit is for these 16 and beneath in the beginning of the season.
She is ranked fifth within the junior circuit, which covers these 19 and beneath. Within the senior circuit, which isn’t sure by age, Fallon is thirteenth and is the youngest competitor ranked within the Prime 15.
She has traveled the world for her sport, with tournaments in France, Poland, Dubai and Serbia. She plans to go to Germany, Spain and Slovakia this season.
To be aggressive, Fallon mentioned she trains eight hours every week and works on her energy and agility within the gymnasium an extra eight hours per week.
“I wish to go to an excellent faculty, and I wish to see the place it takes me after faculty,” she mentioned.
Her dedication to her sport has include sacrifices, she mentioned, with some friendships slipping away as she has traveled and missed gatherings.
Fallon attends King Faculty in Stamford, and her lecturers accommodate her journeys overseas, mentioned her mom, Kristen Lamendola.
Dedication to sports activities runs within the household, Lamendola mentioned.
“All of us play sports activities,” she mentioned. “It is like fairly, fairly large a part of our lives. We’re fairly dedicated as a household to sports activities. So when she confirmed plenty of potential and promise, we embraced it.”
Fallon started fencing after her mother discovered the Fencing Academy of Westchester, a gymnasium in Hawthorne, N.Y., with a historical past of coaching successful athletes. She tried different sports activities, however mentioned fencing clicked together with her 7-year-old coronary heart.
“You get to play with swords,” she mentioned. “You don’t usually get to stab folks” in different sports activities.
Vadim Diambekov, Fallon’s coach and proprietor of the Fencing Academy of Westchester, mentioned she confirmed expertise “proper from the start.”
“The older she’s gotten, she’s labored more durable and more durable,” Diambekov mentioned.
All through her youth, Fallon has joined groups however loved the discharge of competing as a person.
“In particular person sports activities like, you may solely rely upon your self. And I might quite rely upon myself,” she mentioned.
“She is as good as you may presumably get for this sport,” Diambekov mentioned. “She is super-athletic, and she or he is working on a regular basis.”
He mentioned he believes she is going to climb larger within the senior rankings, noting that she would possibly simply obtain her dream of going to the Olympics.
annelise.hanshaw@hearstmediact.com
