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EXCLUSIVE: Former American Olympic Fence Team Main coach Andrey Geva has brought a lawsuit against US fence stool Damien Lehfeldt, who claimed Lehfeldt made “false and misleading” statements to Congress in a 7th May Congress Hearing on Trans Athletes.
Geva, a US fence board member, brought the lawsuit with co-member and former Egyptian Olympic Abdel Salem, against Lehfeldt and the other five at-sized director members. The trial seeks to have Lehfeldt removed as chairman.
Geva has elaborated on the alleged false comments, which he claims that Lehfeldt conducted in an exclusive interview with Pakinomist Digital.
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Members of No. Six World-ranked US Women’s Epee Team from left to right, Kelley Hurley, Courtney Hurley, Katharine Holmes, Katarzyne Trzopek and trainer Andrey Geva, for a group photo under the Women’s Epee Competition in Panamerican Fencing Championships on June 24, 2016 at Convention Balboa in Panama. (DEVIN MANKY/GETTY Images)
Geva pegede på en erklæring fra Lehfeldt, da formanden sagde: “Kvinder udviser mere almindeligt andre fordelagtige træk såsom fleksibilitet og smidighed. I sidste ende er hegn en sport for strategi og teknik. Disse elementer vil oftest afgøre, hvem der hersker, og når det kommer til strategi og teknik, har ingen af sex -kvinder, der har en indherskende fordel, transgender -status, således ikke udgør nogen inherent fordel over en Cisgender Fency, who is someone who has any in -depth benefit -Transgender -Status, which does not constitute any inhetent benefit over a cisgender Fencender Ciser CIS, which has any advantageous benefit -Trans gender status, which does not give any inherent advantage over a cispine Fencende Fencer CIS that has the beat that has erased.
As a former Olympic fence coach, Geva believes this statement is untrue. Geva served as Team US’s main fence coach and CEO of 2013-21, led the team through the Rio 2016 Olympics and Tokyo-Olym in 2021. The United States took six Olympic medals under Geva’s leadership, including gold in women’s individual foil in Tokyo.
“This is simply not true, and that is what I told him many times that I have an expertise like someone who successfully coached both male and female fences at the highest international level,” Geva said, referring to how he trained his own male and female students.
“I trained them differently. I have a different approach to male and female fences because they are different.”
GEVA also argued that LefHeldt made a “misleading” statement when the President referred to “competition with mixed gender, where men and women safely and fairly competed against each other for decades,” due to the fact that mixed gender competitions are rare at national level.
“It’s a misleading statement. Yes, on practice fence men and women each other, no problem. Local tournament, not appointed, not sanctioned tournaments will sometimes have mixed events. Sometimes when a female competition does not have enough competition, we will have mixed events,” said Geva.
“However, there are zero mixed events at national level.”
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US fence has official separate national events for men’s and women’s categories. The organization sanctions mixed gender events at the local level according to the official political side.
The United States fence responded to Geva’s trial in a statement delivered to Pakinomist Digital, but the organization refused to tackle his recent comments.
“The United States fence proudly serves its members – athletes, coaches, judges and clubs – across our community with absolute transparency and integrity. This derived trial mistakenly represents our organization, and we will strongly defend the organization in court; any attempt to separate them will be treated appropriately,” the statement reads.
“Because litigation is in progress, we cannot discuss details. Our focus remains unshakable: to promote fence nationwide, support each member’s success and maintain the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement.”
The lawsuit claims that Lehfeldt’s statements during the hearing on May 7 are now at risk of the organization that has been declassified as a national governing body and “has alienated thousands of members in the fence community who have supplied more than 90% of USA’s revenue.”
Geva told Pakinomist Digital that he has communicated with several private clubs associated with USA hencing, who have left the organization in response to its current policy of trans -bright readability, which allows Biological Males to compete in women’s competitions and moved to Amateur Athletic Union (AAU )’s hencing League of America.
“Due to the US fegn policies, some of the clubs actually finish, small clubs, they finish the US fence membership, and they moved to AAU,” Geva said, adding that the clubs ended for other reasons as well. “I know quite a few clubs that end membership in the United States fence.”
Geva refused to name the clubs he claimed had ceased. A named source within the United States fence organization claimed that the organization has seen record growth in the past year.
“The season ending next month (2024-25) is a record year for US fence with more than 43,000 members and nearly 750 club-begging items. So it contradicts all claims that we’ve taken a hit ‘from all news,” the source said.
Geva also said the organization is growing, but “for different reasons.”
“Overall, our federation is growing, but this is mostly due to any organization, it is natural growth. It is very difficult to judge whether it is growing because we are doing excellent jobs, or just because more and more people find that fences are niche and the way to come to college,” Geva said.
The organization has been under tremendous national control after a viral event when women’s fence Stephanie Turner kneeled to protest a transnry opponent and was then punished by US fence.
LefHeldt’s testimony during the consultation on May 7 intensified the criticism only.
Lehfeldt, who was sued and did not come voluntarily, raised the controversy prior to the hearing with a number of Instagram stories that were later blown up and used against him on the committee floor. In a post that became viral before the hearing, he answered a question that asked if he was “okay” of putting female fences in a disadvantage with a simple, brash answer: “Yes.”
Then, during the consultation, Lehfeldt admitted several times that he regretted answering that way and admitted that the question required a “more-nuanced” answer.
Kelley Hurley talks to coach Andrey Geva as she defeats Erika Kirpu in the woman’s Epee -Dividual Table of 32 during the Tokyo 2020 -Olympic summer matches at Makuhari Messe Hall B. (Yukihito Taguchi-usa Today Network)
At one point during the hearing, LefHeldt admitted to falsified an e -mail from a fictional fence mother, “Dorothy,” who disagreed with him and called these members with similar views on “Dorothy” “Grand Wizard” by Ku Klux Klan.
Lehfeldt said the post “was a bad attempt at humor.”
Geva believes the position should be enough to encourage Lehfeldt’s resignation.
“This is more than enough, any decent person, in my opinion, in my opinion, in this failure of this congressional hearing, should resign,” Geva said. “I think under his leadership our Federation goes straight in the wrong direction.”
