While the streets of Paris may not be filled with Remy and his rodent crew, a Bobcat is lighting up the city skyline in their own way.
Quinnipiac graduate Victoria Isaacson ’23 didn’t just walk away with a master’s degree in occupational therapy — they also became a Paralympian.
Isaacson, 26, discovered their love for fencing at 13 years old, when a friend invited them to a lesson. From that moment on, they never looked back.
“I just enjoyed the mental strategy involved with it,” Isaacson said. “I wasn’t always the most athletic person growing up, and I really had really poor coordination, but I was able to be creative and still be successful. And also, stabbing people with swords is really fun.”
They were an able-bodied fencer through high school until they experienced consecutive left femur injuries in 2015, forcing them to take a break and heal.
After recovering, the Poughkeepsie, New York, native returned to the sport only to face new challenges. They began experiencing tremors and frequent migraines which led to a collapse at a meet. Isaacson was in the hospital for three days after an episode, sidelining them from fencing.
While studying anthropology at Stony Brook University for their undergraduate degree, Isaacson discovered their symptoms were a match for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).
(EDS) is a group of hereditary connective tissue disorders that manifests clinically with skin hyperelasticity, hypermobility of joints, atrophic scarring and fragility of blood vessels, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Under the guidance of their coach, Eric Soyka, they pivoted toward parafencing, finding a new way to stay connected to the sport they loved.
“I was starting to have a lot of really bad health issues following hospitalization, and (Soyka) kind of sat me down,” Isaacson said. “He was like, ‘I know nothing about wheelchair fencing. You know nothing about wheelchair fencing. Let’s go on this journey together.’”
Isaacson spent a gap year working as a barn manager at a farm where they lived and cared for 50 horses. During that time, they explored various options for graduate school and found Quinnipiac.
“I was just kind of like looking for programs — knowing I was gonna try to do Paris — that were close to New York, and Quinnipiac has a really good occupational therapy master’s program, and I saw they were allowing applications for the doctorate program, and I applied,” Isaacson said.
Staying near home to be closer to their training in the hopes of qualifying for the Paralympics and for graduate school killed two birds with one stone, but the move to Quinnipiac was for the program.
“I didn’t really know about (Quinnipiac) that much, but then I was just reading about how good the program was, and I’m really happy I went there, because they gave me (an) extremely good education that has really helped me so far,” Isaacson said.
When Isaacson enrolled at Quinnipiac, they knew the school didn’t have a fencing team. Fortunately, they still had ways to continue training for Paris.
Sandra Marchant, who co-owns Rogue Fencing in Woodbridge with Soyka, had Isaacson assist with classes and teach lessons at Rogue. They balanced their schoolwork while receiving lessons from Marchant whenever possible, even when the world flipped.
“During COVID, I was taking lessons in her basement,” Isaacson said. “I would go to classes, then I would go to Rogue, I would teach, I would work out, I would train and it was whatever I could fit into my schedule.”
While many people may think that the transition from able-bodied fencing to parafencing would be a great challenge, Isaacson thought differently.
“I had to relearn everything from scratch,” Isaacson said. “But I kind of found peace with it, because I’m also coaching fencing, so I didn’t have to let go of that aspect of fencing that I already knew. So everything I had learned up to that point, I was able to hone and use as a coach while also working on my separate journey.”
They transitioned to parafencing in 2018 ahead of the 2019 World Cup Championships in Cheongju, South Korea. At the World Championship, they participated in the Individual Epee A, Individual Foil A, Team Foil and Team Epee, finishing ninth for both team events.
This wasn’t their only appearance at the World Championships as they qualified for the 2023 Championships in Milan, Italy. They competed in multiple events, finishing 10th in women’s Team Foil, 21st in women’s Individual Epee A and 23rd in women’s Individual Foil A.
Next stop, Paris.
Isaacson went from a 13-year-old kid following their friend to a fencing lesson to a Paralympian going against the best that the world has to offer — and that road is never smooth.
“The objective of Victoria was to qualify through the regional path, which they take the top fencer out of the Americas slash Africa zone,” Soyka said. “We were aiming to be the top fencer in one of the categories Victoria fences in. The qualification cycle is about a year and a half long, so we have six competitions which we can qualify from. The objective was always to basically train to keep positioning ourselves as high as possible in those competitions.”
And position themselves they did. Isaacson competed in five — three individual and two team events — different competitions in the 2024 Paralympics. In the team events they made the Table of 16 in Women’s Épée Team and made the quarterfinals in Women’s Foil Team. In individual events they made the Table of 16 in the Women’s Foil Category A, the Table of 32 in Women’s Épée Category A and made the first round in the Women’s Foil Category A.
“One of my favorite things about doing World Cups is just seeing all the different cultures and the different people,” Isaacson said. “But I’m just really excited for the overall experience, and I think the energy is just going to be very positive and very supportive from my team.”
Isaacson’s journey in fencing has surely been a different path than most. But when all is said and done, they made it to the big stage and got to perform.
