Slava Grigoriev | Olympian and Head Foil Coach

Slava Grigoriev is a two time Olympian and recognized as one of the top coaches in the United States. His passion and dedication to the sport of fencing has helped to create numerous national and international level athletes. His students have won Cadet and Junior World Championships as well as Pan American and Asian Championships. 

Slava is dedicated to helping his students gain self-confidence, coordination, focus and precision as well as to develop a winning attitude through good sportsmanship in order to realize their full potential as athletes.

His students have also had incredible NCAA success with former and current students being recruited for and fencing at some of the nation’s top colleges and universities including Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown, Duke, Stanford, NYU, Notre Dame, Vassar, Brandeis and Rice.

Eli Dershwitz | Olympian and World Champion

Eli Dershwitz is a Harvard graduate (‘19) from Sherborn, Massachusetts. At nine years old, he followed his older brother into fencing. We are proud to have the 2023 World Champion joining our full-time coaching staff. Eli is a two-time Olympian, having competed in the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Games. He is currently training for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. His many fencing accomplishments include being a muli-time Senior World Championship medalist, two-time NCAA Champion, and the first American men’s Saberist to finish the season ranked number one in the FIE Senior points standings. He also found success on the Junior circuit, winning gold, silver, and bronze medals at the Junior World Fencing Championships. 

After graduating, he became the assistant coach of the Harvard fencing team where he aided the team in clinching the 2022 NCAA Women’s and Men’s Individual  Saber titles. He is now the assistant coach of the New York University fencing team. Tim Morehouse Fencing Club students will have the privilege of benefiting from Coach Eli’s extensive elite competitive experience. 

Tim Morehouse, Olympic Silver Medalist | Founder of Tim Morehouse Fencing Club

Tim is one of the most decorated US athletes coaching Saber in the USA today with an Olympic Silver Medal ('08) won in the men's saber team event and a quarter final individual finish at the London Olympics ('12). Tim is a three-time US Olympic Team Member ('04 '08 '12), 9-time senior world team member and two-time individual US National Champion ('10 '11).

Tim spent fifteen years as a student of 4-time Olympic and USA Fencing Hall of Fame Coach Yury Gelman. 

Tim also has extensive experience in education having served both as a teacher and teacher trainer in the prestigious Teach For America program. Tim holds a Masters Degree in Education and he was honored by the White House as a "Champion For Change" in 2012 because of his efforts in education through his non-profit Fencing In The Schools and his work with Teach For America.

His students have won national medals at every level and his students were recruited and attended elite schools including Yale, Johns Hopkins, Cornell and Princeton amongst others.

Ziad Elsissy | Olympian (Saber)

Coach Ziad is the current Senior Individual Saber World Championships bronze medalist and is currently training for his second Olympic Games. At his first Olympic games in Tokyo 2021 he was the Team Captain of the Egyptian Saber Team. He is a multi-time African and Arab Senior Saber Champion and the 2022 Mediterranean Games Saber Champion. In the 2022/2023 season he won the Individual Saber bronze medal at the World Cup in Alger. Currently, he is ranked 4th on the FIE Senior Points Standings and 3rd on the Olympic Qualification Rankings. 

He began fencing in his native Egypt and has been fencing for 18 years. He emigrated to the United States to study at Wayne State University, where he was a two-time NCAA All-American finalist and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2018.  He received his Master’s Degree in 2021 in Mechanical Engineering specializing in Advanced Propulsion and Engineering Systems. In 2022 he was presented with the First Class Sports Medal in Egypt.

Coach Ziad has been with Tim Morehouse Fencing Club since 2018. His students have won Regional, National and International medals. We are lucky to have him passing his incredible fencing knowledge and experience on to our elite fencers in both Manhattan and Westchester. 

Essam Mohamad | Olympian and Coach

While Coach Mohamed Essam is one of the most recent coaches to join Tim Morehouse Fencing Club, he is a highly accomplished fencer and experienced coach. Fencing for 24 years, he has been a National Foil Team Member in his native Egypt for the last 10 years. He is a Rio 2016 Olympian, participating in the individual and team events. Since 2013, he has earned multiple Senior individual medals at the African Zonal Championships and the African Games. In 2011, he was the African Junior Individual Champion. He has earned more than 50 medals from Egypt’s National Championships for the Junior and Senior Competition. As a member of the Egyptian Team, he is a multi-time African and Arab Champion. He has a degree in BSC Logistics & Supply Chain Management from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime. 

Before joining the TMFC team, Mohamed worked as a coach for 5 years in clubs located in Egypt as well as France. His previous students won 15 medals at Egypt’s National Championships for Cadet and Juniors. In his short time at TMFC, his students have already won numerous medals at Regional and National level competitions, including a North American Cup Cadet Boys gold medal. We look forward to more success in the future!

Iba Keita | Elite Coach (Saber)

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club welcomed Coach Iba in 2022. Iba started fencing at 7 years old in his home country of Senegal. He was the Junior African Individual Saber Champion in 2008. In 2010, he was a member of the silver medal-winning team at the African Championships as well as a semi-finalist in the individual event. He obtained a License for Legal and Political Sciences in Public Law from the Digital University of Senegal. 

He began coaching in 2007 at the Senegalese International Fencing Academy before he started coaching in the United States in 2018. In 2016 he received a “Master of Arms” diploma from the FIE as the Valedictorian. In the United States, Iba has had multiple youth students medal in North American Cups as well as the Summer Nationals, including a Youth 12 National Champion. Coach Iba excels at motivating his students to do their best and keep a positive attitude. 

Eddie Grigoriev | Coach (Foil)

Coach Eddie has over 20 years of fencing experience. He hails from Briarcliff Manor, NY. He was the 2011 Asian Junior Foil Individual Champion representing Kazakhstan and has placed in the top 64 of the Senior World Championships. In the U.S., has placed in the top 8 of Division 1 foil.

He has been coaching for 7 years and joined Tim Morehouse Fencing Club in 2019. His students have found success at Regional, National and International competitions.

Bartek Florczak | Head Saber Coach

Coach Bartek has been coaching for over 20 years and has trained some of the best fencers in the USA. He started fencing at 12 years old in Poland where he was a member of the Polish National Team and a certified coach with the Polish Fencing Federation before immigrating to the United States. In Poland, he was part of the National Champion Cadet team as well as the Cadet individual National bronze medalist. 

He has been coaching at Tim Morehouse Fencing Club for five years and was instrumental in getting the program in our Port Chester location started and its subsequent success. Coach Bartek has also lectured at Red Deer College in Alberta, Canada on “Talent in Sport.” His students have won regional and national medals, and he has students competing internationally.

DISTANCES TO TIM MOREHOUSE FENCING CLUB IN STAMFORD, CT AT CHELSEA PIERS:
Stamford, CT are: Norwalk, CT (7.2 miles); Greenwich, CT (7.3 miles); Darien, CT (8.1 miles); Westport, CT (9.2 miles); New Canaan, CT (10.4 miles); Port Chester, NY (11.3 miles); White Plains, NY (13.5 miles); Rye, NY (14.1 miles); Harrison, NY (15.6 miles); and Stratford, CT (16.2 miles).