Emily Jacobson

Medal record
Competitor for  United States
Pan American Games
Bronze	2003 Dominican Republic	Individual Sabre

Emily Phillipa Jacobson (born December 2, 1985, in Dunwoody, Georgia) is an American sabre fencer.

Background

Jacobson is a daughter of David Jacobson, a member of the 1974 U.S. National fencing team in saber and also a former Yale fencer, and Tina Jacobson, who has also fenced competitively.

She is the younger sister of fellow U.S. Olympic team fencer Sada Jacobson, born in February 1983. She also has a younger sister, Jackie, who was born February 26, 1989, who is also a world-class fencer.

Jacobson graduated from The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2004.

She started attending Columbia University in the fall of 2004, where she is a psychology major.

Fencing career

World Championships, World Cups, Pan Am Games, and US & World Rankings

She emerged onto the world stage in 2001 at the age of 15, when she finished 7th in saber at the World Championships. She won a team gold medal in sabre at the 2001 World Junior Team Championships.

She was ranked No. 2 in 2003 among female junior and senior U.S. saber fencers (her sister Sada was No. 1).

She won a bronze medal at the 2003 Pan American Games.

She won a bronze medal at a World Cup in Havana, Cuba, in June 2003, and a silver medal at a World Cup in Budapest, Hungary, in March 2004.^[1]

She then captured two gold medals at the 2004 Junior World Championships, becoming World Junior Champion, in both the team and individual events.

Olympics

Like her older sister, Sada Jacobson, Emily competed for the U.S. at the 2004 Olympics in the inaugural women's saber event in Athens—a feat that she views as her greatest achievement in fencing at that point in time. She reached the Round of 16, where she lost to Leonore Perrus of France, 15-13.

College career

At Columbia University, Jacobson has been a 2-time first team All American.

After high school she ranked 2nd nationally, and 11th in the world.

Jacobson was the 2005 NCAA Champion.^[2] In 2004–05 she was 27–3 overall.

She ranked 3rd in the nation, and 8th in the world, in sabre during the season.

She won the women’s sabre title at the North American Cup, and secured the silver medal in sabre at the IFA Championships.

She finished 2nd in the nation at sabre at the 2006 NCAA Championships, winning 19 of 23 bouts. She was 31–2 during the 2005–06 season.

Jacobson placed 8th at the 2006 North American Cup. She captured the silver medal at the 2006 Regionals, to finish 1st overall at sabre.

Award

Jacobson, who is Jewish, received the 2002 Jules D. Mazor Award, as the Jewish High School Athlete of the year, from the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (in Commack, New York).^[3]

Miscellaneous

• Jacobson and her sister Sada have been compared to the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena), who have dominated women's professional tennis.

• The Jacobson sisters haven't faced each other since a junior World Cup that Emily won in Budapest, Hungary, in January 2002.

• She trains and competes with the Nellya Fencers local club team in Forest Park, Georgia.

• Her club coach, Arkady Burdan, is a former Soviet fencer and coach who left the Soviet Union in 1989 as a Jewish refugee, and eventually settled in Atlanta.

• She trains: “Four hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no off-season in this sport,” said her father.^[4]

• Her image is included in a new 5766 calendar, Jewish + Female = Athlete: Portraits of Strength from around the World, produced by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, celebrating 14 current stars and 13 legends from the past in a tribute to the accomplishments of Jewish women in sport.^[5]

See also

• List of select Jewish fencers

References

1. ^ ".". fencingmedia.org. http://www.fencingmedia.org/viewathlete.asp?weapon=WS. Retrieved January 3, 2011. 
2. ^ Ralph Hickok (April 1, 2010). "NCAA Fencing Champions". HickokSports.com. http://www.hickoksports.com/history/ncaafencing.shtml. Retrieved April 14, 2010. 
3. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
4. ^ http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:snYrlKfsPRoJ:www.usoc.org/26_13784.htm+emily+jacobsen&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
5. ^ Asinof, Richard (September 29, 2005). ":". The Jewish Ledger. http://www.jewishledger.com/articles/2005/09/29/news/news07.txt. Retrieved April 14, 2010. 

Links

• US Olympic Team bio
• Columbia University bio
• Jewish Virtual Library bio
• National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame bio
• Jews in Sports bio
• "History of Jewish female athletes celebrated in brand-new calendar"
• 2005 interview
• "On the Prowl with Emily Jacobson '08CC," 7/17/2007

Persondata
Name	Jacobson, Emily
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 2, 1985
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death