RIO DE JANEIRO — Alexander Massialas crouched on the fencing strip, fists on the ground, face still covered by his mask, head shaking from the sobs. No American male fencer had won an Olympic individual gold medal in the modern era of the sport. Massialas, ranked as the second-best foil fencer in the world, had come so close to changing that. But now Italian flags waved, and music pulsed through Carioca Stadium 3 for the other man.
Massialas felt a tap on his shoulder. His coach and his father, Greg Massialas, had scurried from a folding chair, up the steps to the strip. Greg knelt and slung his arm around Massialas, the son who used to tag along to his fencing center when he was 5 years old. “It’s okay,” he said.
“Those two words, they don’t sound like a lot,” Massialas said. “It meant the world to me.”
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