St. Paul fencing coach named to Hall of Fame

A St. Paul coach is headed to the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame.

J. Roberto Sobalvarro coached the U.S. women's epee team in the 2012 London Olympics. The team took home bronze making it one of four U.S. women's fencing teams to ever medal at the Olympics.

Sobalvarro got his start in fencing through tennis. His doubles partner's brother fenced and offered the use of his equipment.

"We sort of tried to learn from a book which was an abject failure," Sobalvarro said.

He went on to take a class on fencing at St. Catherine University.

"Turned out I was fairly good at it," Sobalvarro said. "A lot of the sort of anticipatory skills from tennis transferred to fencing fairly easily."

After graduating from Macalester College, Sobalvarro was offered a full-time job coaching fencing for a school district.

He says his greatest accomplishment came when he coached the 2012 women's epee team. Before Sobalvarro stepped in as coach the team had fallen behind.

"We were number 16 in the world when I came in. We were number three when I left," Sobalvarro said.

The team won its bronze medal after a tight match with Russia.

"It took me a year to watch the video on that because I just wasn't sure if I wanted to relive it," Sobalvarro said. "I remember watching that video and stopping it and sticking my head out of the window of my office and yelling at my son 'Did we actually win this?' and he said 'Yes dad, you actually won.' It was nerve-wracking even knowing that I was going to win."

His selection was announced on May 23 and the induction ceremony will take place next summer.

"It's sort of an award of appreciation from the fencing community itself. Not even from the organization but from the fencing community that you have had an extraordinary career," Sobalvarro said.

Correction (May 30, 2017): A previous version of this story used an incorrect spelling for J. Roberto Sobalvarro's surname. This post has been updated to correct the error.