A wrestler, a fencer and a roller skater. They’re just three of at least 90 Orange County residents who will be among the 3,000 athletes competing in the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival in North Carolina today through July 26. And it’s all. . . : Brown Uses the Epee to Foil Her Opponents

For years, Xandy Brown of Buena Park has dealt with a dilemma: Foil is the most widely accepted weapon in women’s fencing, but it is epee at which she excels.

Brown, whose first name is Alexandra, could be moderately successful in foil, or she could be highly successful in epee. The problem is, the competitions--and rewards--are fewer in epee.

Although men compete in three weapons--foil, epee and saber--women have long been limited to foil in most major competitions. And that includes the most major competition--the Olympics.

But after nearly 10 years of focusing more on foil than epee, Brown, 28, has decided to go with her strength. She received her first extensive epee coaching last January. Already she is ranked fourth in the nation in epee, a weapon with a triangular blade. In foil, which has a square blade and smaller hand guard, she had been ranked about 25th.

“Finally I decided, ‘I’m better in epee. Why not concentrate on epee?’ ”

Brown will compete in the U.S. Olympic Festival’s five-women epee competition July 24-26.

But she will not compete in the Pan American Games, because teams will send only two women epee competitors, and she did not qualify for either of those spots. There will be five competitors on each team in women’s foil and in each of the three men’s events. Nor will Brown have a chance at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which will not include competition in women’s epee.

Any Olympic hopes must wait for 1992, when Brown says she expects there to be competition in women’s epee.

Part of the reason she is more successful in epee, Brown said, is that quickness is more important. Competitors can score by hitting parts of the body other than just the torso, and they may hit at any time, not only when they have right-of-way, as in the foil.

Brown, who played volleyball and badminton at Sunny Hills High School, took up fencing while she was a student at Cypress College because her mother, Skip, had developed an interest in the sport.

Brown, who trains at a Culver City club and works in data analysis at an El Segundo contracting company, does her best to fit competitions around her work schedule, but she frequently must take leave without pay or vacation days to fence. Still, she has no plans to stop competing.

Because next year is an Olympic year, there will be little in the way of competitions for Brown and other women who compete in the epee. There will be no U.S. Olympic Sports Festival, no Pan American Games, no world fencing championships.

“Sometimes 1992 seems a long way away,” Brown said.