U.S. Fencers Bring Olympic Torch To Fie Fencing Worlds
5 min read
The United States fencing team will compete in a olympic championship once again after an absence of three years.
At the 2022 FIE Fencing World Championships, which will take place in Cairo, Egypt from July 15-23, there will be 950 fencers competing from 104 different countries. The United States will be represented by a team of 25 fencers.
Since 2019, the global championships have not been held because of the COVID-19 epidemic and the delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020, which have been put back until 2021. In 2019, the United States of America’s men’s foil team took home the gold medal at the competition held in Budapest, Hungary, while the women’s foil team won the bronze.
There are 15 athletes on the United States senior team that have previous experience competing in Tokyo. One of them is Lee Kiefer, the current world champion in the women’s foil event and winner of the gold medal in that event. Six young athletes from the United States are among the rookies at the senior world championship level.
In men’s foil, Alexander Massialas is competing in his 10th global championships. He has won medals at the Olympics three times and at the world championships five times. After winning a silver medal in the individual competition and a bronze medal in the team competition at the Olympic Fencing Competition in Rio in 2016, he made history by being the first American fencer since 1904 to win two medals at the Olympic Fencing Competition.
The San Francisco native, who is now 28 years old, is hopeful that his performance at the world championships will make up for a season marred by, among other things, a wrist injury.
According to Massialas, “this season has obviously been a challenging season for me in terms of the outcomes.” “It’s without a doubt been the season with the least amount of success that I’ve had in the past eight or nine years, if not longer.” It’s been an unusually eventful season.”
Massialas’s father, Greg Massialas, is a three-time Olympic medalist and currently serves as his son’s coach. Massialas is a former world number one in his sport.
Alexander Massialas remarked that working with his father had provided him with “absolutely no doubt a one-of-a-kind and truly unforgettable experience.” “There is always that little bit of pressure,” the person said. Because I was already a pretty competitive child, I didn’t view it as an additional source of pressure.
He continued by saying, “It instilled a great deal of confidence in me.” “If he competed in three Olympics, I will compete in four of them,” he said. It didn’t feel like I was under any kind of strain at all. As I was growing up, I found that it served as a tool that motivated me more than anything else. I had the distinct impression that I was blazing a trail all on my own.
Despite having an inconsistent season, Massialas, who is currently ranked 17th in the world, stated that he is excited about his chances in Cairo.
He reported, “I feel a lot healthier now.” [Citation needed] “At the Pan American zonal championship, which I competed in, I was able to earn the gold medal. As a result, I have a positive attitude heading into the global championships.
“Obviously, the aim whenever you’re there is to win the whole thing, and I know I’m capable of doing that because of my previous success both at the Olympic level and at the level of the world championship,” she said. “The whole thing” refers to the competition that she was participating in. It all comes down to how well I perform on the day, and I try not to think about where I am in the world rankings as I do so.
Anna van Brummen, who will compete in the 2020 Olympics and has won a team medal at the junior world championships twice, stated that she is optimistic about the United States’ chances in the women’s team epee competition.
According to van Brummen, who is 27 years old and from from Goleta, California, “I think that the team we have right now can definitely bring home a medal if we kind of show up and play to the best of our abilities.” “And because this is a really fun group of females, that is what I am looking forward to the most at this particular tournament,” she continued.
She continued by saying, “I’ve kind of been a little bit up and down but relatively stable, so I’m looking forward to that.” “I’ve been trying to strike a balance between my profession and my fencing” (as an environmental scientist). This has proven to be difficult. It is unquestionably a challenging problem that needs to be solved.
Massialas and van Brummen are both focused on the Olympic Games that will take place in Paris in 2024.
According to Massialas, “I like to think of my life in quadrennials as any Olympian normally does.” [Citation needed] I have Paris in mind as a possible destination to shoot towards.
Kiefer, who has competed in the Olympics three times and won three medals at the senior world championships, comes into the competition ranked one in the world. In 2019, she was a member of the squad that won the bronze medal.
Kiefer, who is now 28 years old and made her international debut in 2008, will compete in her 11th world championship event. In her first world competition, she won an individual bronze medal in the cadet division. At her last three world championships, she has been a part of teams that have won medals, including a gold medal in 2018.
Daryl Homer, a three-time Olympian and the current holder of a silver medal from the Olympic Games in Rio 2016, is a member of the men’s saber lineup. Since 1904, no man from the United States has finished higher in the individual saber competition than he did there. Homer, who holds the tenth spot in the world rankings, is competing for the first time since the 2015 World Championships, where he won an individual silver medal.
In addition to Massialas, the squad includes two more Olympic medalists: Gerek Meinhardt, Kiefer’s husband and a four-time Olympian, and Nick Itkin, who will compete in the Olympics in 2020. Both won Olympic team bronze medals in men’s foil alongside Massialas. Itkin and Meinhardt currently hold the 13th and 14th spots on the leaderboard, respectively.
In addition, two-time Olympian Kat Holmes (women’s epee), 2020 Olympian Eliza Stone (women’s saber), 2020 Olympian Jackie Dubrovich (women’s foil), and two-time Olympian Eli Dershwitz (men’s saber) are all returning world medalists in their respective events.
The United States of America competed in the 2022 Pan American Senior Championships in Asunción, Paraguay, in June. There, they won a total of 15 medals, seven of which were gold, serving as a warmup for the global championships.
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