Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosIsabella Barna, 16, and a Summit High School sophomore, has qualified to represent the United States in World Cup fencing competitions in Germany, France and Sweden in the Junior and Cadet age groups. She aspires to make it to the Olympics some day.
Photos by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Fight to the top
A talented fencer from Bend is on her way to World Cup events this week
/ The Bulletin
Last modified: November 22. 2009 8:12AM PSTIn some respects, Isabella Barna is an ordinary teenager: She doesn't love every school subject, she enjoys time with her friends, and she likes skateboarding and being outside. But in other respects, she is extraordinary beyond her 16 years.
In sports, Barna is an elite-level fencer, an accomplished nordic skier, and a stand-up paddle boarder. She is a 4.0 student at Summit High School, where she is a sophomore. She is also an artist, a talented painter. She serves as an athlete model for a Portland-based talent agency. And she is an activist for an organization devoted to combating childhood obesity.
Barna learned discipline as a child through tae kwon do — in which she earned a black belt — and other organized athletics.
“When you first start fencing you're just kind of fighting and it's just like any other form of martial arts,” notes Barna, her voice softy and steady. “Then you realize just how indepth you can go with it, just mentally and in terms of strategizing. So I liked it to begin with and I grew to like it even more.”
(pe fencing, the style of swording fighting that Barna competes in, is the only fencing discipline that considers the entire body a valid target area. The pe sword, compared with the foil and sabre , is the heaviest of the three modern fencing weapons.)
A young woman of considerable drive, Barna aims to one day compete in fencing in the Olympics.
“She is not missing anything,” notes Michael Marx, a former Olympian who coaches Barna at Northwest Fencing Center in Portland. “She is a coach's dream. She is smart and has amazing work ethic. ... Physically she is very gifted. If I was to design my perfect student, it probably would be her.”
Barna has qualified to compete in the Epee World Cup fencing events this season starting this week.
A chance to compete in the World Cup events is a step in the right direction toward one of Barna's biggest goals: to make the U.S. world team.
On Wednesday, Barna and her mother, Cristina Acosta, will travel to Germany for the first World Cup of the year. Following the competition, Barna will compete in two more World Cup events, one in France and one in Sweden, with a few more North American Cups scattered in between. Just last week, Barna traveled to Kansas and competed in the North American Cup. There, she earned a silver medal in the Cadet Epee (U16 girls category) and placed seventh in a field of 144 in the Junior Women's Epee (U20).
“She is likely to make the world team,” says Marx. “She has a really good shot at it. ... And I think, ‘Wait a minute. You don't make the world team from Bend.”
Marx explains that most successful fencers at Barna's level are living in an environment where fencing is popular. In Bend, fencing has a very small following, according to Marx, yet that does not hold Barna back.
In order for her to make the world team, she must rank in the top three fencers in the nation in her age group. Her final rank will be determined after she competes in the three world events and four national tournaments. She is currently ranked fourth in the nation in the U16 Cadet Epee category, according to the USA Fencing Web site (http://usfencing.org).
“Her second year of fencing she got a medal at nationals,” says Randall Barna, Isabella's proud father. “In the 12-and-under age group she was already nationally ranked.”
Marx believes not only that Isabella Barna has a shot at the U.S. world team, but also that the Olympics “absolutely” could be on her horizon.
Throughout her life, Barna has had a way of setting goals — and then achieving them.
For example, she spent years working toward qualifying for the Junior Olympics in nordic skiing. And in 2008, she made it.
Barna says she wanted to prove to herself that she could compete at the Junior Olympic level in nordic skiing before she devoted most of her extracurricular time to fencing. While she will still compete for the Summit High cross-country ski team when she can, she is no longer competing at the elite level as she was with the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation.
“It was just kind of my goal to make it to a certain place (in skiing) before I quit,” she says. “I do that with everything. I set a goal and then I don't stop until I meet a certain goal.”
“Anyone who is successful,” says Marx, “is someone who expects a lot from themselves. And she does. She still seems to be able to do everything. I still don't get it.”
Now that the competitive fencing season is in full swing, Barna will try to find balance between her schoolwork and her commitment to fencing. In December, she says, she expects to be in school for only five days — largely because of travel to fencing competitions.
Fencing is year-round sport, and it includes rigorous training through the summer months.
“I just think it would be really amazing to travel around the world and fence,” says Barna, adding that she sees fencing as a possible ticket to a college scholarship.
Aiming high, Barna's college favorites have included the likes of Stanford and Duke.
Barna is positively an overachiever.
She paints colorful, appealing works of art and has pieces up for sale on her blog (http://isabellabarna.blogspot.com/) to raise money for her fencing training and travel. As a youth advisory board member of the American Heart Association's Alliance for a Healthier Generation she speaks before hundreds to try to motivate youngsters to make healthy diet and fitness choices. And through the alliance, she was commissioned to create artwork for greeting cards as a fundraiser for the organization.
“All the kids who are on the board, they're supposed to be role models,” says Barna. “And they talk to other kids and give them inspiration to be healthy.”
Barna reaches with everything she does. And her parents say they have guided her in no particular direction.
“As a parent of this kind of athlete, performing at this level, you realize that they have to be really motivated internally,” says Cristina Acosta. “Her self-discipline surprises me. It's actually an inspiration for me.”
“I don't really remember exactly every failure and victory that I have had in this whole process,” notes Barna. “I just am, where I am.”
“She doesn't just fence,” says Marx, her coach, who goes on to recite the long list of his star pupil's other activities and accomplishments.
“You would never know, talking to her, that she is so gifted,” he says. “You would never know.”
Katie Brauns can be reached at 541-383-0393 or at kbrauns@bendbulletin.com.
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