U.S. takes home its first gold medal in women's team foil behind strong performances from Scruggs, Kiefer
Lee Kiefer became the first American fencer to win three Olympic gold medals as the U.S. got its first-ever team fencing gold in women's foil at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
The team of two-time individual gold medalist Kiefer, silver medalist Lauren Scruggs, Jacqueline Dubrovich and Maia Weintraub held on for a 45-39 win over Italy in the final.
Scruggs faced a late rally from Italy's Arianna Errigo, who cut an eight-point U.S. lead to three, but the 21-year-old took the next three points to close out the win and celebrated with a shout of delight.
Weintraub, the U.S. team's alternate, was substituted into the final and immediately faced Italy's most experienced fencer, the 2012 gold medalist Errigo. That didn't faze Weintraub, who went 6-4 against Errigo and 11-5 in her two matchups.
Kiefer earlier turned around the semifinal bout against Canada, going a combined 23-12 in her three matchups, including 13-4 against 16-year-old Yunjia Zhang when the U.S. had been four points down. The U.S. won 45-39.
On Sunday, Kiefer and Scruggs faced off against each other in the individual women's foil gold medal match, making it the first time that event was an all-American affair. Kiefer, who is headed to medical school, defeated Scruggs 15-6 to win the individual gold medal.
Scruggs, a senior at Harvard, told "CBS Mornings" she was "losing her mind" when she qualified for the gold medal match, knowing she was going to win a medal.
"I was like, 'Oh my god.' Like, I just kept hitting my face like, 'Is this real?'" she said in an interview earlier this week.
Scruggs' silver medal made her the first Black American woman to win an individual fencing medal. She said it was "an honor to have that title."
"It's an honor to be able to be someone that people can look up to and to inspire people like me," Scruggs said. "... I hope that my fencing can inspire little girls, not just even women of color, but just girls in general to be super fierce competitors and to fence."
Scruggs said she got into fencing partially thanks to her older brother, who she saw playing with a toy lightsaber when she was a kid. Her brother also took up fencing for a bit, but didn't stick with it - Scruggs did. And she's not the only American fencer to credit the "Star Wars" movies for her initial interest in the sport, either.
Mitchell Saron on the men's saber team says in his USA Fencing bio that he was inspired to take up fencing after watching "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" and that fencing allows him to "live my childhood dream of being a real-life Jedi."
The U.S. now has four fencing medals at the Paris Olympics and two gold medals in fencing at the same Olympics for the first time, as well as a first-ever team gold for the U.S.
An American fencer, Albertson Van Zo Post, won two gold medals at the 1904 St. Louis Games but one of those was a team event in which he competed alongside two Cuban fencers. That medal is officially considered a "mixed team" win, not a U.S. gold.
Japan won its first women's fencing medal of the Paris Olympics with a 33-32 win over Canada in the bronze-medal bout.