Jacobson was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and is Jewish.[3][4][5] Her parents are David Jacobson, a member of the 1974 U.S. National fencing team in saber who was an All-American fencer at Yale University and now an endocrinologist, and Tina Jacobson, who also fenced competitively.[6][7][8] She is the sister of fellow U.S. Olympic team fencer and Junior World Champion Emily Jacobson, and fencer Jackie Jacobson.[9]
Jacobson swam competitively for two years in high school.[10] She postponed her college career to train full-time for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
She trained at Nellya Fencers from a young age.[14] She has been coached by Arkady Burdan of Nellya Fencers, and Henry Hartunian at Yale.[14][6]
College & Under-19 career
Jacobson was a 2-time NCAA sabre champion for Yale University (2001 and 2002).[15][3] She won an NCAA Championship and earned 1st-team All-America honors as a freshman at Yale, after a 30–0 regular season. Jacobson was 29–1 as a sophomore, and repeated as NCAA champion. In addition, she was the 2001 Under-19 National Champion. In 2003, she won the World Junior Fencing Championships in women's saber.[3]
Senior World Championships
Jacobson is a 4-time Senior World Championships team member (2000–03). She was a member of the gold-medal 2000 Women's Sabre World Championship team at the age of 17.[16] She won another bronze medal at the 2006 World Fencing Championships sabre competition.[16]
In her first individual World Championships in 2001, Jacobson placed 12th. She placed 5th in 2002 and 2003.[17]
Pan American Games
Jacobson won the gold medal in sabre at the 2003 Pan American Games.[18][16]
National Championships
Jacobson won the US women's sabre championship in 2004 (beating her sister in the final) and 2006.[19][3]
She was ranked # 1 in the US from June 2003 through October 2005.[3]
Number 1 World Ranking
In 2004, at 19 years of age she became the first U.S. woman to be ranked No. 1 in the world in sabre, and only the second U.S. athlete to claim the title, after male fencer Keeth Smart.[10][20][21][22]
Olympic medals
Jacobson won the bronze medal in women's sabre at the 2004 Summer Olympics, the first year that event was hosted at the Olympics.[23] Her match took place before the gold-silver match, and therefore Jacobson became the first women's sabre Olympic medalist.[24][25] She won the silver medal in individual sabre [23] and bronze in the team sabre event at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[26]
Post-fencing career
Jacobson indicated that she intended to retire from competitive fencing after the 2008 Olympic competitions concluded, and focus on law school, and starting life with her fiancé.[27] She graduated with a J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 2011.[28][29][5] She and Brendan Brunelle Bâby, who graduated from Pennsylvania State University where he competed in épée and was a member of three NCAA championship teams, were married in May 2009 in Atlanta at the Nellya Fencers Club, where she had trained for both the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics.[7] As of 2015, she practiced commercial litigation for McKenna Long & Aldridge.[5]
Awards
Jacobson, who is Jewish, received the Marty Glickman Award for the Outstanding Jewish Scholastic Athlete of the Year in both 2002 and 2005.[30][31]
^Ralph Hickok (February 18, 2009). "U. S. Fencing Champions". HickokSports.com. Archived from the original on December 10, 2006. Retrieved March 27, 2010.