Senior Accomplishment Award, Fencing - 2026

Judge Bianchini began fencing at the age of 72 and has won medals in over 100 events since taking up the sport. In his 15 ½ years of sabre fencing, his medal totals for all National competitions, domestic and International, including the World Championships, are 28 Golds, 15 Silver and 27 Bronze. He has qualified for 13 World Championships. Because there is no 80’s Division, he continued to qualify for competitions in the 70s after he turned 80.

Judge Bianchini currently is ranked 25th in the world in the 70’s age group, making him the oldest, highest ranked fencer in the world at the age of 88. He is the oldest national title winner ever for Team USA. He continued his winning ways in 2026 with four Gold medal performances in competitions throughout the U.S, including the North American Championships in Cincinnati, Richmond and Toronto. Internationally he fences for Portugal, made possible by his citizenship of that country under Portugal’s program of right of return, as an effort to make amends to Sephardic Jews for its expulsion of them during the inquisition.

Serving as a state and federal courts judge for 48 years, Judge Bianchini is a retired and decorated U.S. Marine Corps Colonel with 31 years of active and reserve service, including tours in Vietnam, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm. A dedicated supporter of Jewish causes and Israel, he spent six months in his youth working at Kibbutz Ein Gev on the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), across from Tiberias - his mother’s birthplace.