When Alexander Massialas, 22, won a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, he became the first American foil fencer to receive an individual medal in 56 years. That's a big deal for the Outer Sunset fencing academy founded by his father Greg, a three-time Olympian who coaches the U.S. team.
Greg Massialas founded Massialas Foundation MTEAM Fencing, located at 35th & Taraval, in 1988. Since then, he's expanded to two other locations: one across the bay in El Cerrito, and another further south, in Anaheim.
Students as young as seven train in the art of the foil, saber and épée, and many have gone on to greater success. Since 2001, MTEAM's fencers have won more national and world championship medals than any other U.S. academy. Alexander Massialas trains at the Outer Sunset location with his fellow Olympic team member Gerek Meinhardt, who narrowly missed the medal round on Sunday.
This is the second Olympics for Alexander Massialas, a San Francisco native who graduated from Drew School and is set to begin his senior year at Stanford this fall. He also competed in the 2012 London Games, where he was the youngest member of the fencing team. Although he lost his match to Italian Daniele Garozzo on Sunday, he still has an opportunity to take home a team fencing gold medal on Friday, when the U.S. goes up against Egypt.
Swordplay runs in the family: Alexander's sister Sabrina, 19, is also on the U.S. fencing team and plans to compete in the next women's team foil event in Tokyo in 2020. Though he qualified for the Olympic team in 1980, Greg Massialas missed the event, due to the U.S.' boycott of the Moscow Games. However, he did compete for a medal in 1984 and 1988.
Local parent Elliott Ng said he and his kids learned about MTEAM when they lived in in Shanghai last year and took "a short lesson" with Coach Greg, who was visiting the area.
"Our coaches had heard of MTEAM and were affiliated," said Ng, who now lives in Los Altos, via email. "Fencing is a small community."
Ng said he and his 10-year-old and 14-year-old sons "really didn't know much about fencing when we discovered it in Shanghai," but "my second kid wasn't really willing to do any other sports ... I guess fencing caught his imagination, thanks to Star Wars" and other pop culture influences.
Last summer, Ng and his sons met Alexander Massialas and Meinhardt when "they gave a short talk and Q&A with all the kids" at the academy's summer camp, "an annual event that mostly serves the MTEAM fencers, but guest fencers are welcome to sign up as well," said Ng.
Meinhardt, currently ranked fourth in the world, met the Massialas family when he took piano lessons from Vivian Massialas, Greg's wife and Alexander's mom.
"I was impressed by the personal maturity of both Gerek and Alexander," said Ng. "It's clear that the journey of becoming an Olympic-level athlete is an amazing one."
NBCSN will broadcast the U.S. Men's team foil quarterfinals against Egypt, featuring Alexander Massialas and Garek Meinhardt, on Friday, August 12th from 5-6pm.
