Lynbrook teen takes world fencing title

Lynbrook High School junior Sam Moelis reacted when it was announced that he had won a world fencing title. The competition was held in Uzbekistan.

Courtesy Moelis family

Moelis hopes to qualify for the 2024 Olympics

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Plenty of children spend their time sword-fighting, but not many turn their child’s play into a real-life passion. For Sam Moelis, a 17-year-old Lynbrook High School junior, it has become not just a passion, but a chance to make history: Moelis took home a world title at the International Fencing Federation’s Cadet and Junior World Championships earlier this month.

“I feel humbled by the amount of success I have achieved at such an early age,” he said after returning home from Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, with the 2015 Cadet world championship in foil in the 17-and-under age group.

This was just the latest in a long line of accomplishments for Moelis. Last year he won a Division I national championship at 16, becoming one of the youngest fencers to take home the U.S.’s top honor. He went on to compete in the Junior Olympics in Salt Lake City, finishing in the top eight and receiving the highest rating possible for an American fencer.

Sam’s father, Larry, said that it has been quite a journey from his son’s first exposure to fencing, in the basement of Temple Beth Emeth, in Hewlett Harbor, nine years ago. Sam took his first lessons there after his father, who was then president of the synagogue, rented the space to Jonathan Tiomkin, a 2004 Olympian who was looking to establish a fencing club.

Sam took lessons from Tiomkin, and he progressed quickly. “Sam was a natural, and the coach persuaded us to continue lessons into the fall,” Larry recalled. “The rest, as the say, is history.”

Sam studied under Tiomkin for six years, practicing as often as five or six times a week. As he improved, his training became even more strenuous. At 14 he began commuting to Brooklyn daily, taking the Long Island Rail Road to work with Dan Kellner, another 2004 Olympian, whom Sam described as “one of the greatest coaches in the world,” and Race Imboden, the current No. 1-ranked fencer in the world, who Sam said is “perhaps the greatest foil fencer in U.S. history.”