S.F. fencer ousted from foil event
Massialas’ loss follows difficult eight days in quarantine.
San Francisco fencer Alexander Massialas lost his first Olympic match Monday, ending his dreams of adding another individual Olympic medal to his collection and continuing a nightmarish week because of COVID19 protocols.
Massialas spent the previous eight days quarantined in a hotel, apart from his teammates in the Olympic village. He was placed into contact tracing because he had been seated on his flight to Japan near beachvolleyball player Taylor Crabb, who tested positive for the coronavirus and had to withdraw from the Games last
week.
Crabb, who said he is vaccinated, has remained in quarantine at his hotel.
Massialas, who is vaccinated and continues to test negative, was quarantined completely for three days and then allowed to do only certain kinds of limited training, but not be near any of his teammates.
“I’m obviously really disappointed,” said Massialas by Facetime after his loss to Germany’s Peter Joppich. “I’ve been trying to stay positive and make the best of a bad situation.”
But his father Greg, a former Olympic fencer, and a coach for the fencing team, thinks the week took its toll on his son.
“He’s been locked up in isolation and I think it got to him,” Greg said.
The ordeal started after Massialas landed in Tokyo and was held for 12 hours at the airport. He was taken to a quarantine hotel and stayed there for three days. Then he was transferred to another hotel, where more of Team USA is staying, but remained under strict protocols.
The threetime Olympian, who won a silver individual medal and a bronze team medal in Rio, spent much of the week wondering if he would be able to compete at all. He finally received clearance to compete in his foil match Monday a few days ago. But he was unable to train with his teammates.
After the disappointment, he is looking toward Sunday’s team competition. He hopes by then he will have been cleared to move into the village.
“Everyone’s flying blind — there’s not a lot of clarity,” Massialas said. “But the best athletes have the shortest memories. I’ll take some time to be upset and sad, but then I’ll look forward to winning gold with my teammates.”
Massialas qualified for Tokyo several weeks before the Games were postponed. He spent 2020 training in his parents’ San Francisco home and working to save Stanford sports, including fencing. He was a key member of “36 Sports Strong” the Stanford alumni group that successfully fought to overturn the school’s decision to drop 11 sports programs.
Ranked fifth in the world, Massialas had hopes for gold at his third Olympics. He also looked forward to sharing the experience with his younger sister Sabrina, who is on her first Olympic team. He had hoped to walk in the Opening Ceremony with her and hang out in the village. Instead, Monday was the first time he saw her.
“I’m trying to get her to enjoy the moment, because this is something she’s dreamed of for a long time,” Massialas said. “Sometimes life throws something at you that you didn’t expect.”
Though Crabb was vaccinated and is apparently a breakthrough case, Massialas wishes that all his teammates were vaccinated because he’s an example of exactly what’s at risk. Close to 100 U.S. Olympians are unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. All are rolling the dice with not only their own Olympic dreams but those of their teammates.
“It’s definitely perplexing,” said Massialas, who added that the entire fencing team is vaccinated. “I like to think about my teammates and whether or not I’m putting them in a dangerous situation. I don’t want to hurt them in any way.”
Massialas’ fiveyear dream was derailed by the seat he was assigned on an airplane.
“Sometimes you get unlucky in life,” he said, “but at least I got to compete. And I will try to help my team win.”
Massialas’ teammate, Gerek Meinhardt, another San Francisco native, also lost his first match Monday. His potential prematch distraction was for a far happier reason than Massialas. Meinhardt’s wife, Lee Kiefer, won gold in individual foil Sunday. The married fencers are both in medical school at the University of Kentucky.
“I think he had a really emotional, wonderful day and was a little bit drained,” Greg Massialas said.
The men’s team event will take place Sunday.