What to Know
- Lauren Scruggs, from Queens, and back-to-back gold medal individual champ Lee Kiefer headlined the slate of U.S. women in the foil fencing gold medal match Thursday afternoon
- The U.S. has been competing in team fencing events since 1904, and it has never won a gold medal -- on either the women's side or the men's side
- The matchup doesn't necessarily portend well for Team USA. The Italian team they face includes three of the top five players in the world. Italy has won the event four out of the last six times
Lauren Scruggs already had a silver medal. Now she's got Paris Olympics gold.
It's the first gold medal for the U.S. in Olympic team fencing events in history. Team USA earned silver once, in 2008.
Scruggs, a 21-year-old Harvard student from Queens, and the rest of the U.S. women's foil fencers (including two-time gold medalist Lee Kiefer), defeated China (45-37) in Thursday's quarterfinal and hammered Canada (45-31) in the semis, setting them up for a gold medal match with Italy, a stacked team with three of the five world's best (45-39).
The silver win made Scruggs the first Black athlete to medal for the U.S. in an individual women's fencing Olympics event. It's been a rapid ascendance.
“Maybe two years ago, I really thought I could make the team, until last year, I made my first senior team," she said. “So to come out here and medal is just insane.”
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Scruggs said she wants to inspire young Black fencers and show “that they have a place in the sport.”
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As for her loss in the individual final to her fellow American, Scruggs says she's OK with it.
“I’m definitely more happy than disappointed,” Scruggs said. “I think that it was shocking for me to be here in the first place, so I don’t even think I’ve had time to process losing, if I’m being honest. Just shocking and just super grateful.”
There hadn't been an all-U.S. final in an Olympic fencing event since 2008, when Zagunis beat Sada Jacobson in saber as part of an American podium sweep. Before that, the last time it happened was in 1904.
The American team has advanced to the semifinals in the last five world championships. Jacqueline Dubrovich, of New Jersey, and replacement athlete Maia Weintraub, who went to Princeton, will join Kiefer and Scruggs on the piste in Paris.
