Needham’s ‘Star’ Athlete Eyes Olympics

February 3, 2025
• Meet Jaelyn Liu. At 15 years old, Liu has several championships under her belt. With Star Fencing Academy in Needham, she hopes to make her Olympic fencing dreams a reality.

Liu’s fencing career started in an unlikely place: a Chinese daycare. The school hosted a one-day fencing clinic, and Liu — who was around 7 years old at the time — gave it a reluctant shot, thanks to some urging from her parents.

Cut to 2025: Liu became the youngest U.S. Women’s foil fencer to win a World Cup gold medal. It also happened to be her first ever medal in the senior division.

Liu credits her fencing club, Star Fencing Academy in Needham, with the win.

“I was able to expand my skill sets in such a short amount of time,” Liu said, “and I was able to find some type of feeling to go into more advanced competitions.”

Shuang Meng and her husband Kai Zhao founded the academy in 2020, finding their first student and future world champion in Daniel Zhang. Zhang boosted the club’s visibility outside Massachusetts, Meng said.

Liu lived in Dallas, which she said provided few resources for up-and-coming fencers. An encounter with Meng inspired Liu to make routine trips up to Star Fencing Academy for summer camps and training sessions over holiday breaks.

That is, until August 2023, when her family decided to pull up their stakes and move to Boston, all for fencing.

Jaelyn Liu smiles during the 2025 Hong Kong Women’s Foil World Cup, in which she claimed the gold. (Luca Pagliaricci / #BizziTeam)

“I asked them, ‘Are you sure?’ Because it’s a big commitment,” Meng said. “She started to train more consistently, harder, more intensely.”

The move appears to have paid off. Over the past two seasons, Liu has achieved 12 top-three finishes. This season, she has won more than 95% of her competitions.

All the while, her dad Jason Liu cheers on from the sidelines.

“It’s amazing. It’s beyond my expectations,” Jason Liu said of her performance.

Settling down halfway across the country proved difficult — “it’s a very big change,” Jason Liu said — but it’s a risk they were willing to make.

Jaelyn Liu and her coaches have their sights set on the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Getting there, however, will prove challenging.

“The U.S.A. team pool is very hard, it’s very intense,” Meng said. “Just to get qualified is hard.”

Just 24 fencers will join the U.S. national team, and among them, only four female foil athletes make the cut.

Fencing involves three different weapons: foil, epee and saber. Star Fencing Academy exclusively trains for foil, which is a lighter blade and requires more technique. Epee is a heavier sword that demands more strength, and saber is more about speed, Meng said. Scoring and the target area differ between all three divisions.

“For foil, your blade technique strategies, your reaction, set up and timing is important,” Meng said.

Liu will graduate high school in 2027, so the timing is right. Her youthfulness will be at its highest, she said, and her energy could help propel her to L.A.

When asked if the Olympics is her ultimate dream, Liu hesitated to say yes — because her real dream is to win a gold medal.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to make one of the Olympics and at least become an Olympic champion,” Liu said.

As a child, Liu gravitated toward the performing arts. She danced ballet and ice skated before switching to fencing. She recalls thinking fencing was “way too aggressive” but something her parents believed would alleviate her shyness.

Jaelyn Liu hits her coach during a training session at Star Fencing Academy. (Cameron Morsberger)

“I hated the feeling of getting hurt from the hits,” Liu said. “Then after a bit, every single time I was able to hit a touch, it was an ego boost.”

Her passion for the sport kept Liu motivated, especially through losses early in her career. She spoke critically of her performance as a pre-teen, but her wins/losses statistics say otherwise.

Speaking with coaches, including Meng, helped the young athlete expand her horizons, she said. The feeling of winning competitions lit a fire inside her that continues to fuel her big dreams.

Liu is one of 220 students at Star Fencing Academy, where she trains almost every day. Meng estimates she and Zhao have taught close to 1,000 students in their careers. The couple belonged to China’s national fencing team and turned into coaches for young athletes.

Before jetting to Croatia for a Junior World Cup last Wednesday — where she would win the gold — Liu practiced at the club, wearing her full kit and a helmet emblazoned with the American flag. Next on her tournament roster is a Senior Grand Prix in Turin, Italy on Feb. 7, where she will compete alongside accomplished U.S. fencer Lee Kiefer.

“In the last World Cup Senior, she beat a two-time Olympic champion [Lee Kiefer],” Jason Liu said. “That was amazing.”

“It was just natural instinct to fence her with all my might,” Jaelyn Liu said of the bout. “When I found out I was leading, I was a little bit dazed.”

Jaelyn Liu trains at Star Fencing Academy before a competition in Croatia. (Cameron Morsberger)

Liu’s excellence in the fencing circuit matches that of her academics, her dad said. He and his wife Linda Lin require Jaelyn to get straight A’s to keep fencing. Jaelyn is a sophomore at Weston High School, but she had to recently unenroll following too many absences.

Life in New England is very different from that in Texas. Liu moved from a big private school to a much more isolated community, and she’s still adjusting.

“I don’t like the weather, but I’ve got to deal with it,” she said.

The season won’t slow down anytime soon for the athlete — she’ll have at least three more competitions this month alone. With L.A. in view, it’s full steam ahead. But the 15-year-old will still have some homework to do.

“On the way down, I was driving and she was doing her math,” Jason Liu said before practice. “That’s normal life.”

Previous post Needham Boys Get Split Results Against Milton
Next post Needham Basketball Cruises Past Weymouth in Doubleheader