Coaches

Adam Skarbonkiewicz
Head Coach

Email: Adam.skarbonkiewicz@gmail.com
Phone: 719-271-9168

Head Coach Adam Skarbonkiewicz is a former U.S. National Sabre Champion and world champion fencing coach. Adam was first a student of legendary U.S. Olympic sabre coach Ed Korfanty, and later Korfanty’s assistant coach at Oregon Fencing Alliance. Adam has a strong national and international record of coaching success, including guiding his daughter, Magda, to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, three world championships, Junior and Cadet in 2022, and the cadet world championship in 2021.

Adam has been selected by the USA Fencing Association as designated national coach for multiple international World Cup events. He has coached a long line of world-class fencers, including Caitlyn Thompson, a Cadet, Junior and Senior World champion, Siobhan Sullivan, a 2022 world silver medalist and Division I national champion, and U.S. National Team members and World Championship medal winners, including Chloe Fox-Gitomer, Avery Zuck, Eileen Hassett, Mara Keltner, Elliott Clinton, and Sara Bowman. He also has coached Phil Reilly, a world silver medalist in veterans events.

Adam has over 15 years of competitive saber fencing experience and more than 20 years of coaching experience. As a teenager in Poland he was a student of Korfanty, who later came to OFA and established an unparalleled record of success. Adam also came to the United States and would become the No. 1 U.S. ranked fencer from 1994-97. He won 11 North American Cups between 1994-99. Adam qualified to the U.S. Olympic team in 1996 but disappointingly was unable to convert his citizenship in time for the entry deadline.

Adam first came to the Oregon Fencing Alliance in 1994 as a competitive fencer by way of Poland and Rochester Fencing Center. He retired from competitive fencing to become our Assistant Coach from 1996-2005. During this time he also led the Oregon Episcopal School fencing programs. In 2005 Adam became Assistant Fencing Coach at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

He returned to OFA in the summer of 2012 as our Assistant Coach working closely with Maestro Korfanty with many of the club’s top students. Adam has completed the Master of Coaching/Fencing receiving his degree from the University of Physical Education in Katowice, Poland and received a BS from Portland State University.

He enjoys windsurfing, skiing, and tennis and also exploring new activities with his wife, Brynn, and his three children, Magda, Max, and Milena.

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Ian Farr
Assistant Coach

Email: iangfarr@gmail.com
Phone: 503-750-6803

Assistant Coach Ian Farr, who joined OFA full-time in 2018, has a strong coaching background from the club to the college level, and a deep connection with our club, Portland and Head Coach Ed Korfanty. Ian came to us from the Midwest Fencing Club in Chicago, where he was head coach. 

Ian, who grew up in Portland, was an OFA fencer and trained under Coach Korfanty until he joined the sabre team at Penn State University in 2003. He was an NCAA All-American in 2004 and in 2007, when Penn State won the NCAA National Championship.

Ian began his coaching career in 2009, when he led the women’s sabre team at Northwestern University. In 2010 Ian joined the coaching staff at the University of Notre Dame, and over four years coached nine Irish sabre All-Americans. From 2014 to 2018, he was the head coach at the Midwest Fencing Club, mentoring youth fencers and coaching at regional events, NACs and international competitions. One of his fencers qualified and competed at the 2017 Men's Sabre Cadet World Championships. 

Ian has a master’s degree in sports administration. He and his wife, Sara, have two daughters, Violet, and Winnie.

Jeff Larsen
Assistant Coach
Email: caoren28@yahoo.com
Phone: 503-701-8482

Assistant Coach Jeff Larsen, whose lengthy history at Oregon Fencing Alliance dates back to his time competing in youth sabre events, is another strong branch from the coaching tree of retired OFA Maestro Ed Korfanty. Jeff was among Korfanty’s many standout students, finishing his competitive career with a number of successful national and international records, including a top 4 finish among all U.S. cadets. 

 Jeff’s return to the club as an assistant coach in 2019 marked the beginning of his second stint as an OFA coach, having worked at the club under Coach Korfanty from 2009 to 2014. Jeff has substantial coaching experience, also having served as head coach at Northpointe Fencing, and as an assistant at Capital Fencing Academy in Washington, D.C., and PDX Fencing in Portland.

Jeff is a graduate of Portland Community College with a degree in Exercise Science. As a former Cross-Fit Level 1 instructor, Jeff has a strong background in fitness technology, personal training and nutrition.  He often leads OFA’s fitness programs.

Jeff is also a familiar face at most national and many international sabre events, where he serves as a highly rated sabre referee.

 He lives in Portland.

Assistant Coach Anna Angelova-Atanassov is a former Olympian who came to the Oregon Fencing Alliance after a highly successful career of foil fencing and coaching in her native Bulgaria. Over Anna’s many years at OFA she has introduced hundreds of Portland-area youngsters to fencing.

Anna was a member of Bulgaria’s National Fencing Team from 1985-1999, and in 2001, and served as a team captain. She competed in foil in the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, and was named Bulgaria’s Fencer of the Year in 1997.

Previously, Anna taught fencing in Plovdiv and Sofia, Bulgaria. She joined the Oregon Fencing Alliance in 2000, and since then she has enthusiastically led many of the club’s beginner programs, extended care and Summer Camps, and launched the careers of many young OFA fencers who have gone on to national and international success, and to the nation’s strongest college fencing teams.

Anna attended Bulgaria’s Central Sport School for Potential Olympians, and studied coaching and physical education at the National Academy of Sport in Sofia, Bulgaria, finishing her work in 1998.

Anna is also a highly rated referee in both foil and saber for the U.S. Fencing Association.

Anna and her husband, Viktor, have one son, Vasil, who trains at OFA and is a nationally ranked cadet fencer.

Anna lives in Beaverton.  

Assistant Coach Yelena Kalkina

Ed Korfanty
Coach Emeritus

The legendary U.S. Saber Coach Ed Korfanty led Oregon Fencing Alliance for almost thirty years, arriving at the club in 1993. Korfanty retired from OFA in 2021 and moved to Southern California to be closer to his family. However, Korfanty maintains a strong relationship with OFA.

Ed was born in Poland and started fencing at age 16. He developed into a top-ranked fencer in Poland and fenced a number of years on the Polish Junior and Senior National teams. Korfanty graduated from the renowned Academy of Physical Education in Katowice, Poland, with a master's degree in Physical Education and a Master of Fencing degree. By 1984 he had become the head coach at the Olympic Center in Katowice, Poland, and coach of the Polish National Team. In 1990, Coach Korfanty immigrated to the United States and became assistant fencing coach at the University of Notre Dame.

In 1993 he was recruited by Colleen Olney to come to OFA. Olney was coaching and developing OFA into a powerful center of fencing in all three weapons of sabre, foil and epee. Under Korfanty’s direction, the Oregon Fencing Alliance moved to become a one-weapon club in 2000, concentrating on sabre. The accomplishments of his students since then have been extraordinary and unmatched in the history of fencing throughout the U.S. and world.

Korfanty’s students have won more than 41 World Championship medals, two Olympic Gold Medals (2008 Beijing, 2004 Athens) and three Olympic Bronze Medals (2008 Beijing). Additionally with Korfanty as National Coach, the U.S. Women’s Sabre team won 5 Gold medals in the Team World Championships. Add the individual and team medals won at the World Championships and the medal count increases by 9.

His most recognized student is Mariel Zagunis, who started her fencing career with him at age 10. She has won an unprecedented 3 individual World Championship Gold medals (Cadet in 2001, Junior in 2001, Junior in 2005) and the first Olympic Gold medal for U.S. fencing since the era of modern fencing. In 2008 Zagunis won her second Olympic title in Beijing. Other notable students include Caitlin Thompson - 2004 Cadet World Champion, Rebecca Ward: 2005 FIE overall Jr. World Champion - 2006 Cadet World Champion - 2006 Jr. World Champion - 2006 Jr. World Team Champion member, Patrick Ghattas and William Thanhouser.

Staff

Tara DelaRosa
Executive Director
Email: info@oregonfencing.com
Phone: 503-887-7396

As OFA’s executive director, Tara wears many hats, or rather “masks,” in her role; she also loves a good fencing pun. She manages billing, accounting, marketing, community programs, coaching schedules, camps, and facility management for OEA.

Tara brings a diverse business background spanning more than 25 years, including being a fashion buyer for May Department Stores, Nike Retail DM, and Columbia DM. She owned and managed Blowout, a local blow dry bar, for 14 years.

When it comes to athletics, Tara is a competitive tennis player, collegiate rower, skier, and hiker, and has recently joined the competitive pickle ball circuit. She and her husband, Alex, raised three athletic daughters; her youngest went on to become a D1 collegiate volleyball athlete. With her athletic background and experience with collegiate sports, she understands the demands of the athletes at OFA and is thrilled to support their fencing journey.