The qualifier ran across a brutal, twelve-hour day — pool rounds in the morning, a full elimination bracket by afternoon, forty of the country's top junior saber prospects narrowing, gradually and mercilessly, toward the three spots that would define the entire traveling roster for Budapest.
Ivy fenced with a focus that felt, by the day's third hour, almost meditative — the accumulated months of Coach Volkov's technical refinement layered over her father's instinctive foundation, every exchange a careful, deliberate balance between improvisation and discipline that had simply not existed in her fencing a year earlier.
She finished pools undefeated, five wins across five bouts, and found herself, by early afternoon, standing in the elimination bracket's semifinal round against Katya Volko
