You need to grow up and get over your Oregon hating nonsense.
You need to grow up and get over your Oregon hating nonsense.
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.S. Olympic Fencers Make it a Triple Feat
U.S. Women Sabre Fencers Win All Three Medals in Beijing Olympics
U.S. winners in sabre fencing (© AP Images)
U.S. winners in sabre fencing: gold medal winner Mariel Zagunis is flanked by Sada Jacobson (silver), left, and Becca Ward (bronze).
This article is excerpted and reprinted with permission of the U.S. Olympic Committee from Issue 10, Day 6 (Thursday, August 14, 2008) of the USA Daily newsletter.
Several years ago, as Mariel Zagunis of Beaverton, Oregon, looked toward her first Olympic Games in 2004 in Athens, she did so as an alternate on the U.S. women’s fencing team.
But by the time of the opening ceremony in Greece, Zagunis was no longer an alternate. What she did with that opportunity has become one of the most gratifying stories of U.S. involvement in the Olympic Games and for fencing in the United States.
Zagunis won the Olympic gold medal in women’s sabre, as the event joined the Olympic program for the first time. In so doing, she became the first American to win a gold medal in fencing in 100 years. (Sada Jacobson of Dunwoody, Georgia, won a bronze, which, combined with Zagunis’s win, gave the United States its first two Olympic medals in women’s fencing.)
“I think at Athens people thought, ‘She came out of nowhere, she’s a big underdog,’” Zagunis said. “But going into Athens, I wanted to win as much as anyone else, and I expected to win.”
And Athens was just the beginning for Zagunis and her team in terms of success with the swords.
In a strong return in the 2008 Games in Beijing, the United States swept the medals in women’s sabre. Zagunis, 23, won the gold medal for the second time, Jacobson the silver, and Becca Ward of Portland, Oregon, the bronze. Their medals were the first in the U.S. medal count during this Olympics.
“She is a true champion,” said Jacobson of her teammate Zagunis. “She achieves in the clutch.”
Mariel Zagunis, right, scores against her teammate Becca Ward (© AP Images)
Mariel Zagunis, right, scores against her teammate Becca Ward in the semifinal round of the Beijing Olympics sabre fencing Aug. 9.
Zagunis, who wasn’t ranked first in the world for the event, said that her win was “a dream come true.”
The dream may continue Thursday as the trio of Zagunis, Jacobson and Ward move into the team event in women’s sabre. All three are ranked in the top five.
Zagunis has Olympic history in her family. Her parents, Robert and Cathy Zagunis, were members of the U.S. Olympic rowing team in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. (Cathy’s last name at the time was Menges.)
At 15, their daughter became the youngest fencer to win a gold medal at the World Championships. It was in the team event. She’s also the only fencer to win four world titles, including junior and senior, in the same fencing season (2000-01).
Zagunis took time off from her studies at Notre Dame to train for the Beijing Olympic Games. She will also be taking off the fall 2008 semester and hasn’t divulged her plans for fencing in the future.
Jacobson, 25 and a graduate of Yale University, was also noted in fencing before winning her medal in Athens. In 2003, she became the first woman and second U. S. fencer ever to rank first in the world.
Jacobson won the Marty Glickman Award from the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. The award honors its namesake, an All-American football player at Syracuse University, who was on the U.S. Olympic team in track and field in Berlin in 1936, but wasn’t allowed to compete because of his race.
Jacobson is entering law school at Michigan and has said that her participation in Beijing will end her fencing career. However, Jacobson believes in a legacy.
“We hope that any success we have goes to making our sport more popular,” Jacobson said in media interviews. “If we can get even one girl to take up fencing, then we’ve done well.”
Ward, 18, is participating in her first Olympics. In 2006, Ward won the individual gold medal at the senior World Championships. After competing in Beijing, Ward plans to enroll at Duke University.
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