Monica Aksamit

Aksamit started fencing when she was nine years old.[16][10] She began fencing at the Polish-American Fencing School in Linden, New Jersey, under Janusz Mlynek, who coached her in Polish.[12][19] As she describes her introduction to the sport:

"They handed me a sword. They said, 'Hit the other kid'. I did. Everybody clapped and cheered. I was like, 'I don't understand what's going on. But, okay. This seems like a great time.'"[12]

Her fencing club since she was 15 years old is the Manhattan Fencing Center in Midtown Manhattan, and her coach is Yury Gelman, with whom she has worked since she began training at the club.[16][11][3]

During her college fencing career as a Penn State Nittany Lion, Aksamit won two NCAA Team Championships and was the runner-up NCAA Champion in women's saber in 2012.[16] She was a three-time All-American.[5]

Aksamit began representing the United States, for the United States Fencing Association. She won a team silver medal at the 2008 Junior World Fencing Championships in Acireale, Italy, at 18 years of age.[16][14] She was ranked 12th in the world among juniors, and 16th in the world among seniors, in the 2008-09 season.[12]

In 2009, she won a team gold medal and an individual bronze medal at the Pan American Fencing Championships in San Salvador, El Salvador.[16] In 2012, she underwent knee surgery after competing in the NCAA finals.[12][20] She helped Team USA win the team gold medal at the 2016 Pan American Fencing Championships in Panama City, Panama.[16]

As the reserve member of Team USA, Aksamit won a bronze medal representing the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the Women's Saber Team competition, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[21][22][23] She was subbed in the bronze medal match against Italy.[12] She had fractured a vertebrae in her back training for the Olympics, so she had to wear a back brace to compete in the Games.[12]

The following year, Aksamit won a silver medal with Team USA at the 2017 Pan American Fencing Championships in Montreal, Canada. Two years later, she again won a gold medal with Team USA, this time at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. In 2019, strapped for cash as she trained in an effort to again make Team USA for the Olympics, in order to make ends meet she lived with her mother in New Jersey, and worked a number of jobs in between training sessions.[4] She also launched a GoFundMe campaign in September 2019 to cover her training and travel expenses, which raised over $30,000.[3][11] The United States Olympic Committee gave her a stipend of $300 a month.[11] She narrowly missed qualifying for Team USA for the Tokyo Olympic Games.[4]