Lincoln sophomore Anya Harkness won 8th place in the country at the U.S. Fencing Junior Olympics, her first national medal, on Saturday, Feb. 14th. This now makes her one of the best fencers in the U.S.

Anya said, “I have been fencing for five years. I started when I was ten. My dad was the first person to introduce me to it. He had discovered a club that was right near our house and I was looking for a new sport to do since soccer season was over. So, I tried it out and I’ve stuck with it ever since.”

She then went on talking about how it felt to win. “It feels like a dream, I wasn’t expecting it. It was really surprising and really exciting. I would always see the people on the podium getting medals and I’m like ‘Thats me one day!’, but I wasn’t expecting to get it that day so it was really exciting. It was super awesome.”

When asked if she plans on going further in her fencing career, she replied, “My coach wants me to train to be on the national team now so that’d be the next step. Next year I’ll be able to go to national competitions. My goal, my big, big goal, my dream that I would die if it happened, is to go to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.”

Anya is pretty busy every day of the week with her training to go further. “I train Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and I have competitions on Sundays, with three 20 minute private lessons each week. Then, I do cross training on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I try to train a little bit every day.”