Harvard puts its mark on men’s sabre team

En garde, pret, allez!

That's how the referee begins each bout of Olympic fencing — in French, anyway. On guard, ready, go! While we're at it, let's meet the U.S. men's sabre four-man team for the Paris Games. Hint: See if you can spot a trend.

The veteran is Eli Dershwitz, a three-time Olympian who in 2023 became the first American male to win a world championship in sabre. He's also a Harvard graduate, class of 2019, and two-time NCAA champion. He also was an assistant coach for the Crimson and speaks English and Spanish fluently. But how's his French for Paris? "The French," he said, "is terrible."

Next are Filip Dolegiewicz and Mitchell Saron. Both Harvard men, class of 2023, both Ivy League champions, Dolegiewicz an NCAA champion, Saron an All-American. Both coached by Dershwitz. Also roommates at Harvard.

The young blood is Colin Heathcock, a phenom in world fencing at the age of 18 and ranked No. 1 in juniors in the world in the sabre. As of this fall, he's going to … Harvard.

Spot a theme? Yep, the team is all Harvard, headed to France to represent the crimson, white and blue.

 "I still can't believe it's turned out that way," Saron said. "It feels straight out of a TV show or something. I feel incredibly proud about the fact we're able to go to Paris and compete for the United States all under the Harvard banner as well."

Same for Dershwitz: "It's like a dream come true. To know that I was a part of it as a training partner, as a coach, as a mentor, it's extremely meaningful. I think the energy we have as a four-person unit is our strongest trick up our sleeve heading up to the Olympics."

And Dolegiewicz: "With me, Mitchell and Eli, it's definitely a very strong bond, and the connection we have. (Dershwitz) really helped bring us up and helped us become better fencers. It's just a really cool story."

Heathcock was off in Europe training and unavailable for this story, but it's very likely he would make that opinion unanimous. 

"It's incredible what he's been able to do as a high schooler," Dershwitz said. "To be at his age and to be winning senior world cups and to be dominating some of the best fencers the world has ever seen, he's been an absolute monster, with great energy."

Fencing runs in a lot of these families. Dershwitz followed his older brother, Phil, into the sport back home in the Boston area. Heathcock, born in Beijing, took up fencing with his brother, Antonio. Growing up in the Chicago area, Dolegiewicz also followed in an older brother's footsteps. "My parents drove me to practices with him, and I would sit on the bench and just watch all the kids play with swords. And as an 8-year-old, I thought that was super cool," he said. "The rest is history."

Then there's Saron. In his case, you can thank director George Lucas. He's the man who came up with "Star Wars." Imagine little Mitchell watching the screen in fascination through the whole series of movies.

 "My mom told me I was at a point where I was either watching 'Star Wars' every day or if I wasn't watching 'Star Wars,' I was watching 'Lord of the Rings.' So the swords just got instilled in my brain, I think before I was even conscious, honestly. I had just gotten super obsessed with swords and light sabers. Any time we passed by a toy store, I was just begging for my parents to buy me another one even though I had a collection of like 20. I don't know why. I just loved it so much. I would ask my family members to fight with me with swords all the time in the yard."

One day his mother consulted with their family doctor. What can we do with this sword-crazy kid? A fencing club was only five minutes away, the doctor said. One thing Mitchell learned there in a hurry: He was a sabre guy, because you can slash away and score with the edge of the blade rather than only with the tip like in epee and foil.

 "That was like an actual light saber," he said. "I've got the real deal. I dropped all sports after that and stuck with it."

He was 9. Fourteen years later, he's still at it.

However the four began, they all ended up on the road to Harvard and now to Paris. It hasn't been easy. USA Fencing's qualifying process for the Olympics can feel like a long walk on a high wire.

"Honestly, the emotions right now are definitely a lot healthier than they were throughout the Olympic qualification season," Saron said. "During the whole process — fencing is a sport where it takes the whole year basically to be decided — there's definitely a lot of sleepless nights where you're going through multiple scenarios in your head."

Same for Dolegiewicz.

"It's been a roller coaster of a year. After I graduated, I decided to take a year off from work (in banking) and just pursue training for the Olympics full time. That was a huge risk for me. And at the beginning of the season, there were a lot of ups and downs with the qualification tournaments, so there was a lot of pressure. I definitely had a lot on the line, but I'm super glad that I took my risk."

There is something about facing crunch time together that has brought the team together. If cohesion counts for much, they're a threat for the medal podium. They are anyway, given recent world competition results.

"The biggest thing in the team competition is obviously talent, and work is very important, but a lot of teams going to these Games all have those components," Saron said. "The thing that pushes people to the next level is team chemistry. It's honestly beautiful the way we're all able to compete with one another and especially the individual relationships between the four of us. Like for example me and Filip, same age, same graduating year in high school, we grew up competing against one another since we were 10 years old. We've been friends for 13 years now. We both got recruited to Harvard the same year. We were roommates for three years.

 "While we were there, Eli was coaching us. We've looked up to him since we were little boys fencing and now we get to call him our teammate. He's still kind of our coach. There's this weird line we don't know if we cross sometimes when we're trying to give him crap. Obviously Colin, he's got the once-in-a-generation talent. He came on the U.S. team and very much sparked our confidence.

 "It's just a phenomenal dynamic between the four of us."

It's already been a great summer for Dershwitz because he's a huge Boston Celtics fan. Watched every game of the playoffs and was a little nervous even when they were up 3-0 in the NBA Finals. "I've blown leads in fencing before," he explained.

His experience, his age and his accomplishments all make him the glue of this bunch.

"I'm sometimes referred to as the boomer on the team," he said. "I've been on (them) for years now about spending more time stretching, more time doing mobility, more time making sure they're sleeping and recovering and hydrating. It's like, 'Aw, you're so serious. You need to relax a little bit.' I'm like, 'I've been training and competing like this for 10 years. You guys have been doing it for two.'"

Dershwitz, Heathcock and Saron all will miss the opening ceremony in Paris because the sabre individual competition is the next morning. "We just can't be walking around for eight hours getting blisters," Dershwitz said. Dolegiewicz is eligible for the team competition later in the Games, so he's planning on attending the ceremony.

To be the team leader makes 2024 different for Dershwitz than his first two Olympics.

"I don't know what the right word is. It's not like I feel I have to do it, but I feel like I really want to put in the extra time and energy to give them similar leadership and brotherhood and mentorship that I got when I was a younger member of the Olympic team. It's really about passing the torch on to the next generation."

This might be Dershwitz's last Olympics, and a deeper perspective comes with that, especially how it relates to those who have been a part of the journey, even if only by blood. Included are his maternal grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors, his grandmother surviving by hiding in a barn. 

 "They're not with us anymore, but I'm just hoping they would be proud just to see their grandson competing for America in the Olympic Games. My parents tell me they would be proud, so I like to think I'm doing the best I can in that regard," he said.

"The closer I get to the big moment, those are the moments where I get more and more nostalgic. I spend a long time, especially at night, thinking about the journey that got me here, trying to remember the ups and downs. There's been a lot of both over my career."

One "up" was way up. His world championship puts him in a club of one for USA Fencing.

"The No. 1 thing that comes to mind is gratitude, mostly because in order to accomplish something's that never been done in the history of men's sabre in America really does take a village."

One other piece of history Dershwitz knows well: No American man has ever won an Olympic gold medal in the sabre.

 "I think I let expectations and the fear of not reaching those expectations and the want for a medal just for the sake of having a medal, clouded my judgment and preparation the last two Olympics a little bit, to the point where I was going into the tournament scared about what if I don't win a medal," he said. "Whereas now I think if my career ended tomorrow, I would be happy and proud of the career I had, and once I've accepted that, I think it became a lot easier to let go of the possible negative results this summer. Not thinking about what if this, what if that."

But here's one last what-if.

What if the Harvard guys wear something from their school during the competition? That's quite the fencing program in Cambridge. Harvard won the NCAA fencing championship this year without any of these team members.

 "We have not decided what we're going to do. I've proposed we wear Harvard socks," Saron said.

"I'm not sure they're going to let us do that in the Olympics," Dershwitz said.

Socks or not, Harvard will be at the men's sabre competition in Paris. Times four.