Iryna Dolgikh
Head Coach
Phone: 255-2368
Email:
id48@cornell.edu
Iryna Dolgikh, a former world champion fencer, was named the head fencing coach at Cornell University by the Meakem♦Smith Director of Athletics Andy Noel in June 2005. Dolgikh is the seventh Big Red fencing coach in the program’s storied history.
The sixth-year Big Red head coach came to Cornell with a reputation as one of the top fencing minds in the country and proved to be no less in her first five seasons working with her team. A well-respected coach on the international level, Dolgikh has been chosen to coach the U.S. Veteran's fencing team, traveling to the world championships for the past two years. She was also selected to travel and help with the U.S. Cadet and Junior fencing team at the world championships in the fall of 2009 and the spring of 2010.
Last season, Dolgikh helped to mentor Rebecca Hirschfeld to a second-team All-Ivy selection before sending 11 fencers to participate in the NCAA Regionals, a team-high during her tenure. Of those 11 fencers, five placed in the top 20 and three advanced to the NCAA tournament, where the Big Red finished 14th overall. Cornell's top finisher at the NCAA tournament was Beverly Yang '13, who took 17th in her first postseason outing.
Dolgikh led the 2008-09 Big Red team to an eighth place finish at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships, thanks largely to the epee squad’s bronze medal. The team went on to have four fencers - sabre Alex Heiss ’09, foil Jessica Tranquada ’11, and epeeists Tasha Hall ’10 and Sallie Dietrich ’10 – advance to the final round of the NCAA regionals and advance to the NCAA Championships. Hall was the Big Red’s top finisher at NCAAs, ranking 19th overall in epee, while Heiss and Tranquada each took 20th place. Rounding out the field for Cornell Dietrich, who finished in 24th place. Although she didn’t participate in the NCAAs, epeeist Katherine Thompson ’10 also had an outstanding season as the only Big Red fencer to be named All-Ivy with a second-team selection.
The 2007-08 season proved to be the most successful under Dolgikh as the squad finished fourth among women’s teams at the IFAs, its best finish under Coach Dolgikh. The team then had five top-ten finishes at the NCAA Northeast Regionals, as Tranquada (foil), Dietrich (epee), Hall (epee) and Heiss (saber) all qualified for the NCAA Championships. Those four fencers went on to give Cornell an 11th place finish at the 2008 NCAA championship despite fielding only a woman’s team (the NCAA fencing championship is scored as a dual men’s and women’s event). Individually, Heiss became just the third women’s fencer in school history to earn All-Ivy honors, as she picked up second-team accolades after leading the Big Red sabre squad in Ivy League competition. Likewise, four members of the Big Red squad - Thompson, Dietrich, and Christine Wilkinson ’11 (epee), as well as sabre Katie Halpin ‘11 – participated in the Junior Olympics. All four fencers did extremely well at the prestigious competition, led by a 16th place finish from Thompson.
In her second year, Dolgikh led the team to a dual meet record of 13-6, including victories over Brown and Yale, as the Big Red narrowly missed out on a .500 conference record after falling to Penn, 14-13. The team took a seventh place finish at the 2007 IFA championships and Dolgikh coached Heiss to a 13th place finish int the 2007 NCAA tournament.
Cornell’s improvement under Dolgikh was evident from day one. Her 2005-06 squad finished 14th as a team at the 2006 NCAA championship meet. She helped both Meghan Phair ’06 and Alex Heiss ’09 finish in the top 20 at the meet. Cornell finished fifth as a team at the 2006 IFA championships, an improvement over a 10th-place finish at the event the year before Dolgikh arrived. The biggest monkey off the team’s back was also lifted, as it earned its first Ivy League win in 14 years (a span of 65 league matches) when it defeated Brown in Newman Arena as host of the first-ever Ivy League championship.
A native of Kyiv, Dolgikh brings a long line of credentials and plenty of coaching and fencing experience into her first collegiate head coaching job. Dolgikh was the World Champion in women’s foil in 1976, a gold medalist in the World Cup in 1977 and a bronze medalist in the USSR Spartakiad in 1975. Dolgikh was a member of the Soviet Union’s Junior World Team in the mid-1970s. She is a 1982 graduate of the Kyiv Institute of Physical Culture.
Prior to Cornell, Dolgikh spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Penn State, helping the Nittany Lions to a pair of national runner-up finishes and silver medal finishes from 2002 to 2005. In 2003, her epee fencers swept the top three places at the NCAA championships.
Prior to arriving at Penn State, Dolgikh spent two years as a private coach in Dallas, Texas. She was a prominent coach and competitor in Russia and brings more than 20 years of teaching experience in the Ukraine, Moscow and Bratislava and the United States.
Dolgikh is married to Sasha Gutor and the couple has two children. Their daughter Olena serves as the administrative assistant for the Big Red fencing squad. Their son Alex was a standout member of the Penn State men’s volleyball team and currently plays professionally in Germany.
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