Mariel Zagunis - 2004 Athens Olympics

2004 Athens Olympics

The Women's Sabre event was being contested for the first time at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Zagunis did not directly qualify to fence in the tournament. However, Nigeria decided not to send their qualifying fencer to the tournament, and as the next highest seeded fencer in the world, Zagunis was selected to represent the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

She received one of eight byes offered in the first round, entering the tournament in the Round of 16, where she defeated Japanese fencer Madoka Hisagae, 15–13. In the quarterfinals, she defeated Elena Jemayeva of Azerbaijan, 15–11. In the semifinals, Zagunis clinched at least a silver medal by defeating Romania's Catalina Gheorghitoaia, 15–10.

Zagunis faced Chinese fencer Xue Tan in the finals, defeating her 15–9 and becoming the first American to win an Olympic fencing gold medal in 100 years. Previously the only American Olympic fencing gold medalist was Albertson Van Zo Post. In the 1904 Summer Olympics he had been the gold medalist in the individual singlestick event and in the team foil event, where he had joined two Cuban fencers to make up a combined Cuba/U.S. team.

Because fellow American Sada Jacobson had became the first U.S. woman to be ranked #1 in the world in women's sabre (in 2003), the US Fencing Association had touted Jacobsen as the potential gold medalist in the 2004 games, especially at the Fencing Summer Nationals in Austin, Texas that same year. Zagunis' win as the underdog surprised the elite in the fencing world. (Jacobsen earned the bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics.)