2025 Junior & Cadet Worlds Recap, Day 1 (Junior Saber): Lee Takes Silver, Skarbonkiewicz Earns Fifth Career Medal

WUXI, China — Saber’s already a lightning-fast weapon, but when you’re fencing saber at your first Junior & Cadet World Championships, everything seems to fly by at light speed.

That makes the Junior & Cadet Worlds debut from Alexandra Lee (Princeton University, Premier Fencing Academy) even more impressive.

Lee, a Princeton sophomore, made the most of her one and only Junior & Cadet Worlds (she’ll age out of Juniors after this tournament), powering past the distractions and the gravity of the moment to earn a silver medal on the first day of the 2025 Junior & Cadet Fencing World Championships in Wuxi, China.

“It just all went by really fast,” Lee says. “I was just fighting for every touch. I’m proud that I pushed myself to work through it. I wasn’t thinking about things like, ‘Oh, this is my one and only.’ I just kind of wanted to play and have fun, and I’m happy that I did that.”

Lee earned an individual bronze medal at the 2025 NCAA Championships and says she’ll take the lessons learned in Wuxi back to Princeton with her — and beyond.

“It’s about keeping yourself disciplined and being patient,” she says. “I will definitely take that with me to all of my other tournaments in seniors and college.”

At the 2025 NCAA Championships, Lee shared a podium with Magda Skarbonkiewicz OLY (University of Notre Dame, Oregon Fencing Alliance). That happened again on Monday at Junior & Cadet Worlds, with Skarbonkiewicz earning bronze.

That’s the fifth individual medal for Skarbonkiewicz, the 2022 and 2023 Junior Women’s Saber world champion, who returns to the podium after finishing fifth in the individual event in 2024.

“Each tournament has been different,” she says. “For this one, even though I wasn’t able to win today, I got through some mental challenges that’ll help me in the future.”

The 2025 NCAA Women’s Saber champion says she was at her best in Wuxi when she got “angry.”

“I’m a more emotional fencer sometimes. My technical fencing won’t be as strong if I’m really nervous,” she says. “So I have to get excited. I have to scream, get emotional, and just enjoy what I’m doing and feel everything on the strip. Because when I fence, I have to fence with my whole heart.”

Junior Women’s Saber

• Silver: Alexandra Lee (Princeton University, Premier Fencing Academy)
• Bronze: Magda Skarbonkiewicz OLY (University of Notre Dame, Oregon Fencing Alliance)
• 10th: Siobhan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame, Oregon Fencing Alliance)
• 15th: Sophie Liu (Capital Fencing Academy)

Junior Men’s Saber

• 16th: Emilio Gonzalez (Scarsdale Fencing Center, Fencers Club Inc.)
• 17th: Will Morrill (Columbia University, Scarsdale Fencing Center, Fencers Club Inc.)
• 19th: Cody Walter Ji (Nellya Fencers)
• Medical Withdrawal: Colin Heathcock OLY (Harvard University, Christian Bauer Academy, Manhattan Fencing Center)