HOLMES Katharine

Personal Information

Residence New York, NY, USA

Occupation Athlete, Student

Languages English, Latin

Higher education Neurological Science - Princeton University: United States

License number 15071993001

Club

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Sport Specific Information

When and where did you begin this sport? She took up the sport at age nine, when her parents enrolled her in lessons at the Chevy Chase Fencing Club in Washington, DC, United States of America.

Why this sport? "I loved reading books about medieval times and I wanted to be a knight. I started fencing, I was quite terrible at it, but I loved it. I liked being alone out there on the strip, it was very appealing."

Club / Team New York Athletic Club [USA] / DC Fencers Club [USA]:

Name of coach Natalie Dostert [national], GER; Zoltan Dudas [personal]

Handedness Right

General Interest

Nicknames Kat (Facebook profile, 11 May 2024; Instagram profile, 11 May 2024)

Hobbies Singing, playing guitar, swimming, rock climbing, spending time with her cat. (Instagram profile, 12 Mar 2021; usfencing.org, 12 Jun 2017)

Memorable sporting achievement Helping Princeton University win the Ivy League championship in 2017. She won the decisive bout after Princeton and opponents Columbia University were tied going into the final match. (usafencing.org, 23 Mar 2017)

Injuries She had an emergency appendectomy in May 2017. (Facebook page, 29 May 2017)

She injured her knee in her first year at Princeton University in 2011/12. The following season she sustained an injury to her ankle. (washingtonpost.com, 23 Dec 2015)

Sporting philosophy / motto "They call fencing the chess of sports. When you're younger, you're playing basketball, tennis, or soccer, you kick the ball, you hit the ball. With fencing, there's this puzzle before you." (realwomanonline.com, 11 Jul 2019)

Awards and honours At the 2018 International Fencing Federation [FIE] Congress she received the FIE's Fair Play Award. (fie.org, 08 Dec 2018)

Ambitions To compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. (people.com, 09 Jul 2021; goprincetontigers.com, 01 May 2024; USA Fencing Facebook page, 02 May 2024)

Other information SPORTING RESEARCH
After finishing fifth at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in the women's team epee event, she decided to investigate why the team had fallen short of winning the gold medal for her senior thesis at Princeton University. In 2017 she published her thesis, 'How Risk Preference and Perception of Action Riskiness in Fencing Affect Learning and Strategy of Fencing Play', which involved her analysing videos of fencers in order to create a predictive model for results and developing a computer programme that simulated common fencing situations. She said the results of her thesis have had an impact on her own performance. "In the end, I found that fencers actually attack less than what is optimal. I adjusted my approach in one-touch overtimes, and my win percentage went from 60% to 88%." (realwomanonline.com, 11 Jul 2019; dataspace.princeton.edu, 01 May 2017)

MEDICAL STUDIES
In 2021 she began studying medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY, United States of America. (Instagram profile, 01 Mar 2022; people.com, 09 Jul 2021; teamusa.org, 12 Mar 2021; Instagram profile, 12 Mar 2021; usafencing.org, 12 Feb 2021)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
In February 2021 she joined the USA Fencing board as an athlete director until the end of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo. She has also served as chairperson of the USA Fencing Athlete Council. In 2020/21 she served as a volunteer assistant coach for the men's fencing team at Princeton University. (usafencing.org, 12 Feb 2021; goprincetontigers.com, 01 Sep 2020)