Cohen finishes fifth in the foil at Junior Olympics

Yesterday morning sophomore foil David Cohen and freshman epee Mindy Nguyen returned to Penn after competing in the Junior Olympics in Chattanooga, Tenn. Cohen, who is ranked fourth in the United States, ended up fifth in the men's foil competition. "I was pretty disappointed," Cohen said. Cohen's finish leaves him one place short of qualifying for the Junior World Championship team. As the first alternate, he will only be invited if someone ahead of him is unable to attend. The tournament began with the foilers divided up into pools of six or seven. The fencers were then seeded after competing against everyone in their pool. Cohen was seeded third after the first round. "I was definitely capable of winning," Cohen said. "I really wanted to win it but I didn't." Cohen took off last semester to train in Bonn, Germany. "He's been working very hard," Penn fencing coach Dave Micahnik said of Cohen. Like Cohen, Nguyen competed in the Junior Olympics in Oakland, Calif., last year. She finished in the top 50 this year -- an improvement on last year's 67th place out of 120 epee fencers. "I did well, but not as well as I should have done," Nguyen said. "I did better than last year, but not as well as I hoped." "This year is an adjustment year from high school to college fencing [for Mindy]," Micahnik said. "We've been working on new techniques," he added. Nguyen was out of the tournament after losing a bout to longtime rival Maya Lawrence, a Princeton freshman. "She's knocked me out for the last three years," Nguyen said. Nguyen remains optimistic about future competition. "I'm not disappointed. It was really tough and I'm not sorry about how I did. It's something to work on for next year," she said. Freshmen Scott Eriksen and James Benson and sophomore Eric Epstein also competed at the Junior Olympics over the weekend. Of the three, Benson had the most impressive showing with a 10th place finish. The fencing team will spend the rest of the week preparing for its final Ivy meet of the season this Saturday at Cornell.