Vaho Iagorashvili
Vaho, a native of Tbilisi, Georgia, is a three-time Olympic Pentathlete and a twelve-time World Championship medalist. At the 2004 Olympics, he was the oldest athlete ever to compete in the grueling five-event sport. At 40, Vaho still managed to come in ninth. In 1988 he won the bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. He has also competed in two Goodwill Games, earning medals three times and the gold in 1986. In 2003, he won the gold yet again at the Pan American Games. Aside from competing, Vaho’s achievements include coaching three US Pentathlon teams, training athletes in running, swimming, shooting, riding, and, of course, fencing. From 2001 to 2003, he served as the team’s Director of Recruitment, seeking potential Olympic athletes for the sport. Vaho has also worked as a physical education instructor, a vocation in which he holds a Master’s degree from the Georgia Institute of Physical Cultures and Sport in the Republic of Georgia. More recently, Vaho began coaching epee at the club level. He enjoys teaching fencers of all ages, having had students from six to sixty. Click here to see a list of Vaho's medals!
Maggie Super Church
Penta Fencing Club coach and manager, Maggie began her fencing career at the age of 11 when she first encountered the sport at MIT summer day camp. “It was love at first sight,” she recalled. By the time she was 15, Maggie had been selected to the Under-16 U.S. National Team in women’s foil. As a collegiate fencer for Yale University she was a three-time captain of the women’s varsity squad and earned NCAA All-American and Academic All-Ivy honors. In 1993 she took the gold medal at the U.S. Junior National Championships and was selected to the U.S. Junior National Team, competing at the World Championships in Colorado Springs and the Pan American Championships in Havana, Cuba. After an eight-year hiatus from the sport, she began coaching at Zeta Fencing Studio in Natick, and in 2005 she earned her Level One Epee coaching certification. Off the strip, Maggie works as a community development consultant with a focus on sustainable revitalization of urban neighborhoods. Her current projects include Union Crossing, an $80M redevelopment of an historic mill complex in Lawrence.
Frank Osborn
Frank started fencing foil at age 13 after a friend encouraged him to give it a try. He has competed at the high school, collegiate, national and international level. He has trained with five different coaches, influenced by Hungarian, Russian and Italian styles of fencing. He was a two time NCAA All-American, four year varsity fencer at Yale University, captain of the 1992 NCAA men’s foil championship team, a participant in 3 Olympic festivals and a member of the U.S. national team in 1992 and 1993. Frank has transitioned from competitor to coach, sharing his enthusiasm, knowledge and love of the sport with his students. Off the strip, he is a practicing family physician in private practice in Tewksbury, MA, serving administrative roles for Lowell General Hospital and teaching Tufts Medical students.