Owen Slain has already traveled to 15 countries—that’s four more than the number of years he’s been alive.
Just this summer alone, the Daves Avenue fifth-grader traveled to Costa Rica, Italy and South Korea for fencing tournaments, a sport he became passionate about from the moment he picked up a blade in 2018.
The 11-year-old ended the 2023-2024 junior foil fencing season No. 12 in the 10-and-under national rankings. Now he’s competing in the tougher 12U division and began the 2024-2025 season—which started in the second week of August—ranked No. 40 in his classification.
“I have this season and next to improve my ranking and get better,” Slain said. “One of my goals is by the end of next season to finish ranked in the top 10, (or even) top five.”
As a tournament-level junior fencer, he’s often on the road. In fact, Slain talked with the Los Gatan from his hotel room in Dallas, where he was set to compete in the North Texas Roundup.
“I’ve been here before; it’s OK,” Slain said nonchalantly.
Whenever Slain travels for tournaments, he usually competes in the 12U and 14U divisions, the latter being beneficial for a couple reasons.
“The difference (from 12U to 14U) is pretty big with the size and talent,” he said. “But it’s good practice against older kids, and if I do well, I get national points. And if you fly out to another area, you might as well do two events rather than just one.”
Slain was recently in San Jose, Costa Rica, competing for the USA Junior team in the Pan American Tournament, where he finished sixth in the 12U foil event. He usually spends two to three weekends every month away for competitions.
This requires a delicate balancing act between sports and academics.
“I do miss a significant amount of school—a lot of Fridays and Mondays,” said Slain, who trains out of the Silicon Valley Fencing Center in Sunnyvale. “You do have to catch up, but I’m pretty good about that, so it’s not that big of a problem.”
The three disciplines in modern fencing are “foil,” “epee” and “saber.” While in some ways they’re similar, in other ways they’re quite distinct.
Slain counts aggressiveness as his strength, while acknowledging the need to hone his skills in a few key areas.
“I definitely like to attack more—and am pretty good at that,” he said. “The things I need to improve on are patience, taking my time, not rushing and improving my footwork.”
Slain counts a third-place finish at the Cascade Clash in Oregon in August 2023—where he went 7-2 in the 10U foil—as a highlight of his career so far.
“That was the best I had done, so I was really happy with that result,” he said.
Morgan Slain, Owen’s dad, introduced his son to the sport six years ago.
“I thought it’d be great for him, because he’s really into athletics and likes to try new things,” Morgan said. “He gave it a try and ended up enjoying it and making a lot of friends.”
The camaraderie of the sport helps explain why he invests so much time into it.
“There aren’t that many kids who do fencing, so you start recognizing people (at tournaments) and start making friends,” he said. “It’s kind of a community. Fencing is one of the only sports—even at 10-and-under—(where) you have to travel to a bunch of other states, or even in another country (to compete at a high level). It’s cool to explore different places.”
That includes a trip to Paris for this year’s Olympic Games, where he watched the men’s foil competition.
Earlier this summer, Owen and his parents even traveled to South Korea, where they got to spend time with 2012 Olympic foil bronze medalist Choi Byung-Chul.
Slain had the privilege of receiving lessons from Choi, a moment he’ll never forget.
He also met the U.S. Olympic team at last year’s National Championships.
Slain hopes all of the knowledge he’s soaked up from some of the best in the sport will equip him to one day accomplish his ultimate goal—competing in the Olympic Games himself.
