What to Know
- Lauren Scruggs, from Queens, and back-to-back gold medal particular person champ Lee Kiefer headline the slate of U.S. ladies within the foil fencing gold medal match Thursday afternoon
- The U.S. has been competing in group fencing occasions since 1904, and it has by no means received a gold medal — on both the ladies’s facet or the boys’s facet
- The matchup does not essentially portend effectively for Crew USA. The Italian group they face contains three of the highest 5 gamers on the earth. Italy has received the occasion 4 out of the final six instances
Lauren Scruggs already bought a silver medal. Now she’s going for Paris Olympics gold.
Scruggs, a 21-year-old Harvard pupil from Queens, and the remainder of the U.S. ladies’s foil fencers (together with two-time gold medalist Lee Kiefer), defeated China (45-37) in Thursday’s quarterfinal and hammered Canada (45-31) within the semis, setting them up for a gold medal match with Italy at 2:30 p.m. ET. You’ll be able to watch that right here.
The silver win made Scruggs the primary Black athlete to medal for the U.S. in a person ladies’s fencing Olympics occasion. It has been a speedy ascendance.
“Perhaps two years in the past, I actually thought I might make the group, till final 12 months, I made my first senior group,” she stated. “So to return out right here and medal is simply insane.”
Scruggs stated she needs to encourage younger Black fencers and present “that they’ve a spot within the sport.”
The U.S. has been competing in group fencing occasions since 1904, and it has by no means received a gold medal — on both the ladies’s facet or the boys’s facet. It earned silver as soon as, in 2008.
The matchup does not essentially portend effectively for Crew USA. The Italian group they face contains three of the highest 5 gamers on the earth. Italy has received the occasion 4 out of the final six instances.
As for her loss within the particular person remaining to her fellow American, Scruggs says she’s OK with it.
“I’m undoubtedly extra completely happy than disillusioned,” Scruggs stated. “I feel that it was surprising for me to be right here within the first place, so I don’t even suppose I’ve had time to course of shedding, if I’m being trustworthy. Simply surprising and simply tremendous grateful.”
There hadn’t been an all-U.S. remaining in an Olympic fencing occasion since 2008, when Zagunis beat Sada Jacobson in saber as a part of an American podium sweep. Earlier than that, the final time it occurred was in 1904.
The American group has superior to the semifinals within the final 5 world championships. Jacqueline Dubrovich, of New Jersey, and alternative athlete Maia Weintraub, who went to Princeton, will be a part of Kiefer and Scruggs on the piste in Paris.
