How An “iCarly” Episode Led Hadley Husisian To Fence Her Way To Paris

Hollywood actors wielding swords have ignited many a childhood dream of fencing. Some of those kids grow up to be Olympians.

Mitchell Saron, a member of the 2024 U.S. Olympic men’s saber team, was entranced by the light saber battles of the Star Wars movies. Maia Chamberlain, of women’s saber, fancied both Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean. Other members of the squad cite the epic sword fight in “The Princess Bride.”

Hadley Husisian had an even more serendipitous route to the sport.  

“Fencing wasn’t even my first choice as an extracurricular, when my mom decided it was time to get me into a sport,” Husisian, now 20, recalled of her days as a 10-year-old at Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia. “It was actually going to be archery. … Mom assumed I would be good at that, because I had done a boardwalk shooting game and I was somewhat decent.”

Turns out, the waitlist for archery was long. What else was there? Hadley flashed back to an episode of the Nickelodeon sitcom “iCarly” she had watched with her older brother, Peter, that featured Carly’s friend, Freddie, trying his hand at the sport.

“I guess it did make an impression, because it was several years later and I still remembered exactly where I was when I saw it,” she recalled this summer. “We were watching on the little TV we had in our kitchen. We were big ‘iCarly’ fans back when we were little.”

And so Husisian joined the ranks of fencers inspired to pick up a sword by watching a make-believe version of the sport, created as pure entertainment.

“It was unlikely that I would tune in to an actual fencing event, because it’s really only broadcast at the Olympics,” she reasoned. “That’s why you see so many stories of people being inspired by Star Wars or ‘The Princess Bride,’ because that’s really the only way you’re going to be introduced to the sport. It’s so niche.”

At first, fencing competed with taekwondo for Husisian’s time and attention. Soon, though, what began as an extracurricular became a passion.

“I kind of dove into it, pretty quickly,” she said. “I was going seven days a week. I think it was an adjustment for my parents, who were not really raised as being in sports. We were going to all of these local and national tournaments. There was never much of a break.”

Husisian decided to specialize in épée, the largest and heaviest of the three weapons used in the sport. In the saber and foil disciplines, touches can only be scored on certain areas of the upper body; in épée, the entire body is a target. Strategy and patience are key, as rash attacks will be quickly parried with counterattacks.

“I’d say I’m fairly defensive; I’m not big on screaming or flashiness or anything,” she said. “Generally, I’m pretty big on parries, which I think matches my disposition as well, to be more defensive. I tend to be more careful and maybe sometimes prioritize not getting hit, over getting the touch myself.”

Continuously ranked as the top junior in U.S. women’s épée from December 2019 through 2022, Husisian won the 2022 junior world title and repeated her victory in 2023, becoming the first U.S. fencer ever to win two junior world épée titles.

“I was pretty successful,” Husisian said of her junior career, which ended last season. “I won a lot of the internationals I went to, and that’s very much not the case in seniors. The skill level is just incredibly higher, so that was an adjustment.

“As soon as I aged out of junior, my immediate goal was to qualify for the Olympics,” she added. “And I kind of had to hit the ground running.”

After graduating from high school in 2022, Husisian enrolled in Princeton University, rooming with fellow fencer Maia Weintraub, a member of Team USA’s women’s foil squad for Paris. The Tigers’ fencing coach, Zoltan Dudas, encouraged Husisian to consider taking a gap year to focus on training and competing.

Husisian was uncertain at first. Getting acclimated at college is a challenge for any freshman, and taking time away seemed like a huge leap of faith.

“I was sort of scared to commit that I was going to try for Paris, because it opened me up to the possibility of disappointment and failing,” she said. “But it was also sort of confidence boosting that not only did (Dudas) think it was the right decision, but he also saw it as a necessity, because he believed I was capable of doing it.”

Qualifying for the Games is a year-long process, as selections for the fencing team are based largely on points earned at international events. She began journaling a few bullet points each day about how she could improve from competition to competition.

“It can be hard to be unemotional when it comes to tracking your progress, which is why I’ve tried to be organized about how I do it,” she said. “I saw the progress I was making, how I wanted to schedule the rest of training based off of what I noticed, and that helped keep me on track.”

Husisian won a bronze medal at a Grand Prix event in Doha, Qatar, in late January, which she thinks helped her secure both an individual entry to Paris, and a spot on the four-member U.S. women’s épée squad. The women’s épée individual event kicks off the fencing in Paris on July 27, with the team event following July 30.

“I really don’t know what to expect,” she admited. “The advice I’ve gotten from past Olympians is, it’s a whirlwind. … It also seems like we won’t get a ton of notice ahead of time on who our opponents are going to be in the individual. I’m just trying to focus on regular preparation and not project too far into the future.”