Massialas is ranked No. 1 in the world, but fell to Italy’s Daniele Garozzo who claimed the gold medal. The top eight teams will advance to the finals, and the U.S. Olympic women are the favorites to take team gold medal.
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The fencers dueled to a 7-7 tie before Garozzo scored 7 straight points.
Massialas opened his bid for an Olympic medal in fencing with a pair of victories to qualify for the quarterfinal.
Tingmao Shi and Minxia Wu of China practice during a training session at the Maria LenkAquatics Centre ahead of the the 2016 Olympics on August 5, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The last time the United States won a men’s fencing medal of any kind was when Peter Westbrook took home bronze at the 1984 Games.
Few seemed as shocked to see the 11th-ranked Garozzo topple the American more than the fencer himself.
But in retrospect, what happened in the final wasn’t terribly surprising, since Massialas needed one of the biggest rallies in recent Olympic history simply to reach the semifinals. The former NCAA champion opened with a 15-7 win over Egypt’s Mohamed Essam and in the round of 16, Massialas earned a 15-9 victory over Russia’s Artur Akhmatkhuzin.
Massialas made his Olympic debut during the 2012 Games and has appeared at the Senior World Championships six times, most recently placing second overall in the individual competition.
“We’ll all be able to recover and get refocused”, Meinhardt said. Massialas will be back to compete for a chance at a Team USA team medal in foils.
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Alexander Massialas came as close as any American man has come to winning a gold medal in the modern era of fencing but couldn’t quite close the deal.
