Noam Mills (Hebrew: נעם מילס; born 27 May 1986) is an Israeli fencer, who competed in the individual women's épée event for Israel at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.[1] She is a three-time junior Israeli champion in épée, and a four-time senior Israeli champion.
Mills began practicing fencing at the age of 11, and became a member of Hapoel Kfar Saba, a local fencing club in Israel.[1] During her career, she won three junior national championship titles in épée.[6] She won the Israel senior women's fencing épée championship four times, in 2005-08.[6] Her coach in Israel was Ohad Balva.[7] Mills commented on fencing: "Being strong is not enough. Fencing is like playing chess while running a 100 metre race."[7]
In 2006, she made her international debut by winning the épée title at the Junior World Fencing Championships.[6] That year, Mills was the No. 1 ranked female junior épée fencer in the world.[6]
Mills competed for Israel at the 2008 Olympics in Women's épée at the age of 22.[1] She faced three-time Olympic medalist Laura Flessel-Colovic of France in the First Round of the competition.[1] Mills suffered an anticipated defeat with a score of 8–15, failing to advance into the next round.[11]
After the Olympics, Mills pursued a bachelor's degree in economics, with a minor in neurobiology, at Harvard University. She competed as the member of Harvard's Women's Fencing Team, and as a freshman in 2008-09 came in second at the NCAA Fencing Championships in women's épée to Courtney Hurley.[6] She was named a First-Team All-American, and All-Ivy League.[6] As a sophomore in 2009-10, she was team captain and again came in second at the NCAA Fencing Championships.[6] She was again named a First-Team All-American, and All-Ivy League.[6] As a junior in 2010-11, she again came in second at the NCAA Fencing Championships, and was again an All-American.[12] In 2011, she received the Ivy League NCAA Elite 89 Award, established by the NCAA to recognize the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals for each of the NCAA's 89 championships, with a 3.86 GPA.[13][14]