Vancouver parafencer Ellen Geddes heads to Paris Paralympics – and this time she’s ready

“This is just fun; I enjoy this,” Geddes said. “This is a fun experience. I like fencing everybody. There’s a lot of camaraderie. I like an event where I can laugh when things go wrong.”

Things have been going more right than wrong for Geddes.

At the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, she earned a pair of team top-10 finishes and one individual top-10 finish in foil.

Since then, she has earned medals at several international events. And she won first place in foil at the zonal competition in São Paulo, Brazil in May.

“Our zone is North and South America and Africa,” Geddes said. “So I have high hopes that I’ll be able to make it up onto the medal stand (in Paris), but we’ll have to see happens on the day.”

Shortly after the Tokyo Games, Geddes began working with Justin Meehan as her personal coach. Meehan, who owns Orion Fencing, will have two athletes competing in Paris — Geddes and Byron Branch, a former police officer from Dayton, Ohio.

“Justin was a referee for wheelchair for quite a long time and briefly he was our national team coach,” Geddes said. “That was when I first got to train with him. And I really liked his method of teaching. It worked for my brain, so that has worked out really well.”

It worked out so well that Geddes now takes up part-time residence in Vancouver to train at Orion.

A native of South Carolina, Geddes was a competitive equestrian rider before suffering a spinal cord injury in 2011 when she was 22. During her rehab from that injury, she was introduced to parafencing.

She still has a passion for horses. In South Carolina, she is the facility manager at Maplewood Farm and the breeding director at Magnolia Sport Horses.

But with the Paralympics looming, she’s been spending more time in the Pacific Northwest for training.

“I kind of split my time between South Carolina and the horse farm and here (in Vancouver),” she said. “Having the house here and having some of my teammates be able to come and stay with me has been fantastic.”

Meehan is hopeful that the success of Geddes and Branch, along with events such as Saturday’s Walk and Roll Tournament, will help lure more people to parafencing.

“We have all of the gear that the fencers need,” Meehan said. “People can provide their own equipment if they can, but they don’t have to. It is not a requirement. It is not a gatekeeper that will prevent people from trying this. We have enough chairs. We have enough frames. We have enough equipment. We have enough uniforms. Not just for wheelchair fencers, but for anyone who wants to come fence. We’ve got it.

“I hear that garbage that fencing is an elitist sport like equestrian and sailing. Horses are very expensive. Sailboats are very expensive. Fencing is not supposed to be expensive. Two kids pick up a couple of sticks, you’ve got a sword fight. It shouldn’t be expensive.”

The specialized wheelchairs used in parafencing are expensive. But Meehan said his club has worked tirelessly to acquire equipment and now have eight wheelchairs available for use.

“We are probably the best equipped wheelchair fencing club in the country,” Meehan said. “We are dedicated to this project. So if there’s anyone out there thinking they can’t do this, come out and try it.”