Oleg Stetsiv

Biography

Oleg Stetsiv, who has enjoyed a long run of sending talented fencers on to NCAA success during his club coaching career, joined the Princeton coaching staff as the program's saber coach in 2016. In the seven competitive seasons during Stetsiv's tenure with Princeton, Tiger saber fencers have earned a combined 21 All-Ivy honors, 27 NCAA championship berths, 18 All-American honors, an NCAA champion in 2018 in Maia Chamberlain, and five other NCAA individual runs that ended in the finals or semifinals, with Daniel Kwak making the final in 2019, Chamberlain as a semifinalist in 2017 and 2022, Chloe Fox-Gitomer as a semifinalist in 2023, and Ryan Jenkins making the semifinals in 2024. Stetsiv coached at the Bergen Fencing Club with his father Orest and son Andrew. Among those under his tutelage at Bergen, Francesca Russo went on to win an NCAA saber title at Notre Dame in 2015, and Caroline Vloka was the NCAA saber champion in 2010 at Harvard. Stetsiv has tutored Tiger fencers before and during their Princeton careers, including North Jersey native Allison Lee from the Class of 2018, who earned All-America honors as a freshman and again as a senior, and Sage Palmedo from the Class of 2019, with whom Stetsiv worked when she arrived at Princeton and who earned first-team All-Ivy honors during her rookie year. Palmedo went on to medal at the Junior World Championships. As a competitor, Stetsiv is an "A"-rated fencer who earned national championships in Ukraine in cadet, junior and se