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Cornell University Athletics

Iryna Dolgikh, head shot

Iryna Dolgikh

Iryna Dolgikh, a former world champion fencer, was named the head fencing coach at Cornell University by the MeakemwSmith Director of Athletics Andy Noel in June 2005. Dolgikh is the seventh Big Red fencing coach in the program’s storied history.
 
The fourth-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 three seasons working with her team.
 
The 2007-08 season proved to be the most successful yet under Dolgikh as the squad finished fourth among women’s teams at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships, its best finish yet under Coach Dolgikh. The team then had five top-ten finishes at the NCAA Northeast Regionals, as Jessica Tranquada ‘11 (foil), Sallie Dietrich ‘10 (epee), Tasha Hall ‘10 (epee) and Alex Heiss ‘09 (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 - epees Katherine Thompson ‘10, Dietrich, and Christine Wilkinson ‘11, 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 and has two children. Her daughter Olena serves as the administrative assistant for the Big Red fencing squad. Her son Alex was a standout member of the Penn State men’s volleyball team and currently plays professionally in Germany.