HOW AN “ICARLY” EPISODE LED HADLEY HUSISIAN TO FENCE HER WAY TO PARIS
Hollywood actors wielding swords have ignited many a childhood dream of fencing. Some of those kids grow up to be Olympians.
Mitchell Saron, a member of the 2024 U.S. Olympic men’s saber team, was entranced by the light saber battles of the Star Wars movies. Maia Chamberlain, of women’s saber, fancied both Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean. Other members of the squad cite the epic sword fight in “The Princess Bride.”
Hadley Husisian had an even more serendipitous route to the sport.
“Fencing wasn’t even my first choice as an extracurricular, when my mom decided it was time to get me into a sport,” Husisian, now 20, recalled of her days as a 10-year-old at Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia. “It was actually going to be archery. … Mom assumed I would be good at that, because I had done a boardwalk shooting game and I was somewhat decent.”
Turns out, the waitlist for archery was long. What else was there?
Hadley flashed back to an episode of the Nickelodeon sitcom “iCarly” she had watched with her older brother, Peter, that featured Carly’s friend, Freddie, trying his hand at the sport.
“I guess it did make an impression, because it was several years later and I still remembered exactly where I was when I saw it,” she recalled this summer. “We were watching on the little TV we had in our kitchen. We were big ‘iCarly’ fans back when we were little.”
And so Husisian joined the ranks of fencers inspired to pick up a sword by watching a make-believe version of the sport, created as pure entertainment.
“It was unlikely that I would tune in to an actual fencing event, because it’s really only broadcast at the Olympics,” she reasoned. “That’s why you see so many stories of people being inspired by Star Wars or ‘The Princess Bride,’ because that’s really the only way you’re going to be introduced to the sport. It’s so niche.”
At first, fencing competed with taekwondo for Husisian’s time and attention. Soon, though, what began as an extracurricular became a passion.
