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Gerek Meinhardtcould concludecareer with historicmedal

Gerek Meinhardt will lead the USA Men's Foil Team for one lastattempt to end a 56-year medal drought.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Gerek Meinhardt became

the youngest ever athlete to compete on a U.S. Olympic

fencing team. He was 18 years old.

Eight years later, he is ready to leave the sport with a

JEFFREY SWINGER

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Alexander Massialas

Gerek Meinhardt

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August 6, 2016 at 1:19pm CT

By:Eric Goodman

AlexanderMassialas

Age 22 |Birthdate 4/20/1994

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GerekMeinhardt

Age 26 |Birthdate 7/27/1990

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medal around his neck.

Meinhardt’s weapon of choice is foil. Traditionally, the

United States has struggled in this version of the sport,

where points are scored with just the tip of the blade

and target area is limited to the torso. No American

individual or team has ever won gold wielding a foil, and

the last medal of any color came over a half-century ago

at the Los Angeles Games in 1932.

The drought might end in Rio, and if you ask Meinhardt,

it will.

“We realistically have a really great chance at a medal,

which wasn’t necessarily the case before,” said the San

Francisco native in a recent interview with NBC Olympics.

“We’ll go in ranked second in the world and be one of the

favorites to compete for the gold medal.”

The “we” he refers to is the U.S. men’s foil team, which

includes Alexander Massialas, Miles Chamley-Watson and

alternate Race Imboden in addition to Meinhardt. Each

will compete in the individual men’s foil tournament,

with the exception of Imboden, but it’s in the team

tournament where the Americans feel they can make

history. “Even though you always go into it with a killer

mentality and a lot of confidence that you can defy the

odds, this time we actually have a really great chance.”

The team is coached by Greg Massialas, Alexander’s

father and a former three-time Olympian in his own

right. Massialas is the only coach that Gerek Meinhardt

has ever known.

“I actually had been taking piano lessons from Greg’s

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wife, Vivian, before I even started fencing," he said. "So I

would be at their house on Fridays for piano lessons.

Then afterward Alexander and I would go straight from

the piano lesson to the gym for practice.”

While Alexander and Gerek have only been Olympic

teammates once before – at the London Games – they

have trained together since they were five and nine years

old, respectively.

“It’s been a really great relationship so far,”

reflects Meinhardt. “We’ve been really fortunate over the

years that Alexander and I have been so successful, and

now he’s my Olympic teammate.”

Rio will be Meinhardt’s third and final Olympics. His

decision to retire after the Games is not due to age – he

only just turned 26 in July – but because he has a

promising business career ahead of him. He currently

works at Deloitte & Touche LLP's advisory

practice. "Basically I have two main clients in the Bay

Area and we help coordinate optimization with their

customers.”

“When I started I was a full-time employee, and that

would entail some days at four, five in the morning doing

a couple hours of workouts and then heading to the

office for the day, and then in the evening after work

heading to fencing practice.”

Working full-time while simultaneously training for the

Olympics is not unheard of, but it certainly presents a

time-management challenge that those who train full-

time don’t encounter. Since graduating and getting an

Story

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MBA from the University of Notre Dame in 2015, it is a

challenge Meinhardt has lived every day. After Rio, he will

finally dedicate all of his efforts to his professional life.

“I’m not sure how abrupt my retirement will be… but as

far as what I’m going to do afterward, I’m focused on my

business career.”

That’s for after the Olympics. This summer, Meinhardt

only has one thing on his mind: ending his fencing career

standing on the podium, ideally on the top step.

“I’m obviously looking forward to being able to see other

events and experience some of the Rio culture… but first

and foremost it’s the competitions. I’m hoping to go out

on top with a medal, and then I can appreciate

everything else that comes after that.”

Story

* ShareInternational Fencing Federation releases competitiondraws

The International Fencing Federation released the draws Thursday for the Rio Games.

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