World No. 1 fencer Alexander Massialas, in Rio for his second Olympic games, picked up a silver in the men’s individual foil Sunday, becoming the first American to take home an individual fencing medal since 1984, when Peter Westbrook won a men’s saber bronze .
Massialas, whose mother is Taiwanese and whose father is Greek, is also the first American to win an Olympic medal in individual foil since 1960, and the first to win silver since 1932.
He lost out to Italy’s Daniele Garozzo for gold 15-11 – a win would have meant the first men’s fencing gold by an American since 1904.
“It was heartbreaking to lose a bout like that,” Massialas, 22, told TeamUSA.org. Following his loss, his father Greg – his coach and a former Olympic fencer himself, though without any medals to his name – rushed over to give him a hug. “For [my father] to come over and just give me a hug and embrace me … he said that he was proud. To know that he knows that I left it all on the strip meant the world to me.”
Massialas, who took off a year from pursuing an mechanical engineering degree at Stanford University to train for Rio, was the youngest U.S. athlete at the 2012 London games. His younger sister Sabrina is set to continue the family sport, having won gold in women’s foil at the 2014 Youth Olympics.
The fencer is in Rio to compete in both the individual and team events, the latter beginning Friday, against Egypt.
“I hope I’ve given a lot of young fencers inspiration, a chance to dream big,” Massialas said. “Obviously a lot of people for the longest time didn’t believe that U.S. men’s foil could ever bring back a medal in the Olympics and to show them that yes, we can, and to show them that you put in hard work and never let down and always believe that you can do it, hopefully I’m able to inspire tons to either start fencing or either dream big in general in whatever they do.”
