The Arnold Sports Festival was supposed to be this weekend, but it’s been postponed due to the ongoing pandemic.
When the Arnold Sports Festival was going on last year, the virus was just beginning its spread in Ohio.
No visitors were allowed but the competitions continued.
Postponing this year’s classic is devastating to some businesses who rely on it.
Fencing is one of the many sports featured at the sports festival.
The Royal Arts Fencing Academy in Columbus hosts The Arnold Fencing Classic
Many of its fencers compete in the tournament, including Tierna Oxenreider, 16. She’s competed at the Arnold Sports Festival for eight years and has even been called a fencing prodigy.
She’s won every Arnold Fencing Classic she’s competed in since she was 7 years old.
Her coach, Julia Richey, couldn’t be prouder.
“Tierna is right now on the United States National Fencing team,” Richey said. “And she was competing internationally before the COVID.”
Richey opened Royal Arts 20 years ago and is the chair of the Arnold Fencing Classic.
She’s a fencing legend in her own right after discovering the sport at 14 years old in what was then the Soviet Union. She was even on the Russian National Team for 13 years.
“Fencing is the passion of my life,” she said. “I’ve fenced more than 36 years myself and they are my kids.”
She said the students are her kids and the business is her baby, but the past year has been extraordinarily difficult, beginning with last year’s Arnold.
“It was devastating,” she explains. “It is our life-saving event for our club for (the) existence of it. It was a huge loss for our business. And then right after that, we had to completely close for lockdown.”
Richey said the small business has taken on about $50,000 in debt in the past year. Having the Arnold postponed this year is another crushing blow.
“I have two jobs to make sure this exists,” she said. “A lot of the coaches that work for me switched to volunteering because I cannot pay them.”
Richey said students have only just started coming back since the pandemic started.
“Fencing is the most COVID-friendly sport because you have to hold the distance, you always wear a glove, and you have a mask on.”
As she works to rebuild, all they can do is wait to see what the Arnold will look like later this year.
“This is all of my life and I can’t just cut it off,” Richey said. “And I hope eventually we will pull out.”
She said The Royal Arts Fencing Academy produces most of the top fencing athletes in the country.
Visit royalists.org to learn more.
