In Their Own Words: Alexandre Leonelli

5/30/2020 9:00:00 AM

I do not believe I can provide meaningful commentary on the current global situation, nor am I able to fully understand the hurt that the most affected individuals and families must endure. I am lucky to be at my desk, in good health, struggling to express my gratitude and appreciation for my teammates, coaches, and the UC San Diego athletics program.

I think it’s simplest to just say thank you. To the Sports Performance staff for teaching me how to better myself and recognize safe and effective training. To my coaches for their unwavering guidance. To the athletics department for supporting our team. And of course to my teammates for the lifelong friendships.

When I joined the fencing team four years ago, I was very focused on my own performance. I placed a lot of pressure on myself to the point of feeling burned out. In the subsequent years, I learned that turning towards my teammates, celebrating with them, and leaning on them for help made me enjoy fencing so much more. Looking back I mainly remember the bus rides, flights, and adventures we had around tournament weekends, like going out to dinner with my teammates in towns we’ve never been to before, or getting glimpses of snow (some of us for the first time).

Unfortunately, this season some of those adventures were cut short as the NCAA was forced to cancel the national championship. We had an incredible season and qualified five fencers to nationals. Sadly, we couldn’t watch them fence and represent us on the national stage, but that does not detract from our achievements as a team. Personally, as a men’s saberist, I’ve never been more proud of my squad as we took both available national qualification spots this year. As a team captain, I will never be able to express my appreciation for the team and the work we all put in together. We really did well this year.

The 2019-20 Tritons

As for what’s next, I‘m excited to start my PhD in mechanical engineering at UC Santa Barbara this fall. It’s going to be weird not seeing the team every day, but I am looking forward to taking my classes and pursuing research in fluid mechanics. Although this will be a new challenge, I can’t wait to get started and I take comfort in knowing that my fencing family is not too far away.

Alexandre Leonelli is a senior sabreur on the UC San Diego fencing team. A physics major out of Roosevelt College, he served as a captain this season. Leonelli placed seventh at the 2020 NCAA West Regional. In 2019, he took eighth out of 56 competitors at UC San Diego's prestigious BladeRunner tournament. The San Diego native was a National STUDENT-Athlete Day honoree as a junior.

"In Their Own Words" is an on-going series highlighting UC San Diego senior scholar-athletes. Below are previous "In Their Own Words" stories:

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program begins a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions III and II and helped guide more than 1,300 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 82 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 37 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.

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