We have seen unofficial reports regarding the junior/U-20 winners in Friday's three weapons that were contested at the Junior Olympics, in Albuquerque. It appears that a pair of Ohio State freshmen – women's sabreist Emily Cheng (Sacramento, Calif.) and men's epeeist Eric Gurnowski (Hackettstown, N.J.) – have brought home gold medals, as has Margaret Lu in the women's foil.
Reports indicate that Gurnowski (#28 in the USFA rolling rankings) defeated Corwin Duncan in a 15-9 epee final (Duncan, ranked #2, won the 2008 U-19 national title). Duncan reportedly had defeated Ed Kelley (ranked #23) in one semifinal while Gurnowski topped Samuel Zucker in the other semifinal bout. It appears that #3-ranked James Kaull and Air Force Academy sophomore Daniel Trapani (Houston, TX) also were among the final eight in the U-20 men's field.
Gurnowski (the 2007 junior national champion) and his sister Elyse, a junior epeeist, currently are teammates at Ohio State.
CF360 is in the process of researching how OSU's pair of Junior Olympic champions (Cheng and Gurnowski) have fared in their bouts with OSU this season, as there does not appear to be season stats or individual result information available on the Buckeyes website. We have received scoresheets from four college tournaments featuring the Buckeyes during recent weeks (at St. John's, NYU, Northwestern and Notre Dame) and thus will attempt to compile a season analysis of Cheng and Gurnowski, within the context of the collegiate fencing competitions.