- Zoltan Dudas, Head Coach
e-mail: zdudas@princeton.edu
Zoltan Dudas began his first season as head coach of the Princeton University men's and women's fencing teams in 2006-07. Dudas, who was previously a five-year assistant coach at the University of Notre Dame, succeeds Michel Sebastiani, who guided Princeton fencing for 25 years.
A 1992 graduate of Juhasz Gyula College in Hungary, Dudas came to the United States in 2000 after serving as a physical education teacher at both grade school and high school levels for 10 years, first as a student teacher and then as full-time staff. As a physical education teacher at Szechenyi Istvan High School, the handball team he led won the National Handball Championship in 1999, topping more than 250 teams. He also coached fencing at the Szegedi Postas Sport Club from 1985-1999. Once in the U.S., Dudas was a fencing coach at the Saturn Fencing Center in Cleveland, Ohio, from 2000-01 before moving to the Notre Dame, Ind., area. Before becoming a full-time assistant at UND in 2002, he served as a consultant to the Fighting Irish program while heading up the fencing program at the Indiana Fencing Academy in Mishawaka, Ind.
While at UND, Dudas helped direct the men's and women's program to combined team titles in 2003 and 2005. Focusing his tutelage on the foil and epee competitors, the Irish had 29 All-America finishes and 34 NCAA Championships appearances in those disciplines.
"It is very exciting," Dudas said of taking the reins of the Princeton program. "At the same time it is a little bit bittersweet. I worked at Notre Dame for five years and [the UND fencers' reaction to his departure] was very touching. Princeton is a nice program and it will be a big challenge to compete with the other programs at a high level."
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- Hristo Hristov
e-mail: hhristov@princeton.edu
Hristo Hristov began his first season as a collegiate assistant coach at Princeton in 2006-07. He has spent more than 25 years in coaching, beginning in his native Bulgaria as the coach of the Bulgarian junior national team from 1980-87. He ascended to coach the full national squad from 1987-91 before serving as an assistant coach for the team for 10 years.
As a junior coach, Hristov’s students claimed gold medals at the Bulgarian national junior meet every year from 1981-87. Meanwhile, he guided his charges to medal performances at the 1985 Junior World Cup in Bonn, Germany, and a seventh-place finish at the Junior World Championships in Dormangen, Germany. Hristov’s senior students saw success on the international level in the late 1980s, claiming individual medals at World Championships and World Cups throughout Europe before beginning the 1990s with a fifth-place finisher at the World Championships in Denver, Colo.
Hristov was a part of the Bulgarian national team from 1969-80, winning a national sabre title in 1976 and 1978. He also won a Balkan sabre title in 1976 and his team won that weapon five times in the 1970s. Hristov has also served as an international referee with an “A” rating in the sabre and a “B” rating in the foil and the epée since 1992. He has judged at five World Championships, 30 World Cups and at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Hristov is an alumnus of the National Academy of Sport of Bulgaria, completing his training in 1984. He can speak three languages: Bulgarian, Russian and English. Hristov is also a certified jeweler.
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- Szilvia Voros
e-mail: svoros@princeton.edu
Szilvia Voros, a Hungarian native who has trained world-ranked and Olympic fencers in both Hungary and the United States, completed a staff with Dudas and first assistant Hristo Hristov.
"I believe in fencing's value to young people. It helps them develop focus and endurance, promotes physical and mental health, teaches people how to win and how to lose gracefully, and that hard work earns results," Voros said. "It's exciting to be at Princeton and to have the opportunity to take excellent students and develop the tools that they will use for life."
With over a dozen years of club coaching experience, Voros will take on her first collegiate position with Princeton. After coaching in clubs in Hungary, she came to the United States in 2000, coaching at Riverdale Country School, The Dwight School and the Peter Westbrook Foundation, an organization founded by the six-time U.S. Olympian to serve inner-city youth, before taking her most recent position at the New Jersey Fencing Alliance in 2005.
From 1992 until she relocated to the U.S., Voros directed the developmental program at the MTK Sport Club in Budapest for Hungarian national women's foil coach Antal Solti. She was then recruited to come to the U.S. to coach at the prestigious New York City Fencers Club. There, she producted four national foil champions and several other top-eight ranked fencers.
Voros is a 1995 graduate of Semmelweis University in Hungary, where she received her bachelor's degree in fencing instruction, did post-graduate work in human kinesiology and recently completed a master's degree in physical education and sport sciences. Voros now makes her home in Colonia, N.J.
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