Women’s Epee Finishes in the Top 10 in Paris
Hadley Husisian competes in women’s epee during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 27, 2024 in Paris.
PARIS: In a team competition, the women’s epee fencers from Team USA danced around the course beneath the opulence of Paris’s Grand Palais. They would finish eighth, losing to Korea and Poland before winning 44–30 over Egypt.
The three American Olympians who were underdogs against Poland, the third-seeded team, in their opening match, managed to overcome their difficult debut. Tuesday afternoon, the sixth-ranked team, comprised of Anne Cebula, Hadley Husisian, and Margherita Guzzi Vincenti, hit the piste. In bout nine, Kat Holmes entered as a replacement, completing the foursome.
Earlier this week, Cebula and Husisian participated in the individual epee competitions. They both won one match before losing in tight matches in the round of 16. They had been used to the intensity of the Olympic competition before entering the team event.
The sixth-seeded USA team faced Poland in a tough opening match of the competition. The American fencers were ahead through the eighth round of competition, but Poland’s Martyna Swatowska-Wenglarczyk scored seven points in the ninth round to overturn the USA’s lead and give Poland the victory, 31–29.
The No. 2 seed, Korea, who had been eliminated from medal contention by the No. 7 seed, France, would be the next opponent the USA faced. With the support of the home audience, the French team pulled off two upsets: first, they defeated Poland to qualify for the gold medal round, and then they sent Korea to the USA’s slope.
In the face of a difficult opponent, Holmes rose to the occasion for the USA, taking the court with a nine-point deficit against Korea. After trailing Korea by 13 points going into the last round, she would go on to score 19 points to get the American squad within six points. Nevertheless, USA would lose the game 45–39.
The USA women’s epee team’s third and final encounter of the competition was against Egypt, the eighth-seeded team, on the Grand Palais’ red piste. The first four bouts of the match saw tight fencing, with the United States leading by three points, 14–11.
The USA defeated Egypt 30-19 over the following five games to win 44-30 and secure seventh place in the competition.
In the history of the women’s team epee competition at the Olympic Games, Team USA has only ever won one medal, which was captured in 2012 by a group that includes Courtney Hurley, Kelley Hurley, Maya Lawrence, and Susie Scanlan. Since 1996, there have only been seven Olympic iterations of the event—2008 was the exception when the IOC decided to exclude some team events from the schedule.
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