Life Membership – Angelo Santangelo, Frank Bartolillo and Vlad Sher

At the Australian Fencing Federation Annual General Meeting held on Sunday 26 May 2024, the member states voted in favour, to award Life Membership to Angelo Santangelo and Frank Bartolillo from NSW and Vlad Sher from Victoria.

It is with great respect the Australian Fencing Federation bestows this honour upon Angelo, Frank and Vlad, with details of their dedication to Australian Fencing provided below.

Angelo Santangelo

Angelo Santangelo has devoted a lifetime to fencing as an athlete, coach, referee, and above all, a mentor to young fencers. Angelo is widely respected in the NSW and Australian fencing communities for his coaching success, and his professional and dedicated approach to his vocation. He has encouraged generations of young fencers into the sport, and helped them to develop their skills, and to engage in fencing with courtesy and respect for other fencers, officials and referees.

Angelo started fencing at St Andrew’s Cathedral School, Sydney where he was twice school fencing champion. At the age of 19 he went to Italy to learn from the best, and in 1980 earned the title of Maestro di Scherma from the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma in Naples, then the youngest fencer in the world to achieve that distinction. In 1982, Angelo founded the Fencing Academy of Arms in his salon at Chatswood, where he teaches the subtle art of fencing to a variety of students. For decades his students from MLC, Knox Grammar and North Sydney Boys High School have competed in the NSW Schools Championships, and he has also taught at Sydney and Macquarie Universities. Angelo is a member of the Australian National Squad high performance coaching team.

In his varied career, Angelo has worked with Italy’s elite fencers and coached at the International Fencing Centre in Zocca, the Italian Fencing Team training at the Sydney

Olympics, and the Australian Modern Pentathlon Team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. He qualified as an international referee and judged at FIE World Cup events. Angelo also taught stage and film sword fighting at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) in Sydney. In 2023 his work was recognised with a Distinguished Long Service Award at the Sport NSW Community Sports Awards.

Angelo has had a dedicated fencing career spanning more than 45 years, and which was recognised by members of the NSW Fencing Association who conferred honorary membership upon Angelo at their annual general meeting on 24 March 2024.

Frank Bartolillo

Frank Bartolillo is one of Australia’s most successful fencers, with an unmatched international career including representing Australia at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, significantly as the second Deaf Australian Olympian. Frank began fencing in primary school and by his teenage years the results of his talent and work were apparent – at the age of 14 he won the National Championship for 15,17 and U/20, at 16 won the Australian Open foil (at the time, the youngest to achieve this title) and went on to win this event nine times. He also won the Open Sabre Champion twice, again being the youngest at the time to achieve this. From the age of 14, Frank was a member of NSW teams, winning a total of 29 Australian Team Championships at U/15, Cadet (17), Junior (20) and Open level.

Frank first represented Australia internationally at the age of 14, competing in two Cadet, six Junior, three Open World Championships, and three Commonwealth Championships. In 1998 Frank was the youngest member of the Australian Sabre team, winning Bronze at the Commonwealth Fencing Championships, Malaysia. In Newcastle 2002 and Melbourne 2010, he won the Individual titles and the Team golds. Frank achieved a career best in the 16 at Senior World Championships in 2007, and ultimately achieved an International Ranking (FIE) Senior ranking of 45 and a FIE Junior ranking of 25.

As an Olympian, Frank was invited to address deaf students at schools, sharing his experiences, answering their questions, and helping to motivate them to try different sports and to do their best. In 2009 he was appointed Ambassador to the Fencing events at the Australian Youth Olympics Festival of the AOC.

After retiring from competition, Frank became a nationally accredited coach. He engages in ongoing professional development in his coaching and continues to be a valued school, club, and team coach with local, national and international experience. The Frank Bartolillo Cup for Australian Under 15s was inaugurated by the AFF in 2015, in recognition of his outstanding career.

Throughout his career and beyond, Frank was supported by ‘team Frank’, his teacher and mentor Beverley Chan, and coaches Tristan Chan, Al Wardle and Ivan Zhao.

Vlad Sher

Vlad has devoted almost 30 years to fencing in Australia.  He has been the senior epee coach for all of that time and the last few years has been the National Technical Director and has also run the High Performance Training for epee fencers.

In Victoria, Vlad has established and run the State Epee squad which has been an effective, on-going training mechanism for many of our top epee fencers and is envied by fencers from other states, a number of whom often visit Victoria to take part in the Saturday morning squad sessions prior to major National Competitions. His influence on the many successful fencers as well as the many persons he has coached who have enjoyed fencing as their sport, often for many years and into advanced age.

As the National Epee Coach for 30 years, Vlad has always been very active attending most of the AFF run competitions and has always been there to advise and give lessons to any epee fencers, from any state, including representing Australia at the 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 Olympic Games as a Head Coach. There is no doubt that Vlad has had a major, positive influence, on very many fencers, over many years, throughout Australia.