Karen Kobayashi, 16, is the new National Snowboardcross Champion in the Junior Women division. She took first place in the USASA 2012 National Championships held April 1-5 at Copper Mountain Resort, Colorado. Next month, the Rye resident travels to Mt. Hood, Oregon, having been selected for Project Gold, a prestigious invitational junior camp.
Jonah Shainberg, 16, a junior at Rye High School, won a silver medal at the European World Cup fencing competition in Godollo, Hungary, October 6. Shainberg finished 2nd out of 178 of the top Cadet (under age 17) male saber fencers in the U.S., Russia, Germany, and many other European countries.
He lost in the finals by one point, 15-14, to a Ukrainian fencer who is currently ranked first in the world. Shainberg keeps his No. 1 national ranking, and is now ranked 6th in the world. He also participated in a team event with three other Americans the next day, and they won a silver medal together, coming in second out of 34 teams.
The following weekend, in St. Louis, Shainberg competed in two North American Cup (NAC) competitions, the first of the 2012-2013 U.S. Fencing season. In the Cadet competition, he won a bronze medal, tying for third place in a pool of 137 male saber fencers from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In the Division 1 event, he placed 13th out of 141 fencers.
Division 1 competitors include members of the USA Olympic team, NCAA collegiate fencers, and qualifying high school-age fencers. Shainberg lost in the round of 16, to three-time Olympian Tim Morehouse, 15-10, but had the best result of any fencer under age 17 in that event.
Over the next three months, Shainberg will be competing in Cadet World Cups in Kiev (Ukraine) and Moscow (Russia), and in NACs in Virginia Beach and Richmond, Milwaukee, and Louisville. He then will compete in the U.S. Junior Olympics in Baltimore in February. He hopes to maintain his first place national ranking and qualify for U.S. National Fencing Team, in order to compete in the Cadet World Championships, to be held next spring in Croatia.
