American Daryl Homer wins historic silver in men’s sabre fencing

Homer, 26, became the first USA man to win an Olympic medal in individual sabre since Peter Westbrook, who won the bronze at the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Homer then defeated Germans Max Hartung and Matyas Szabo by 15-12 scores in the round of 16 and quarterfinals, respectively, before slipping past Iran’s Mojtaba Abedini, 15-14, in the semifinals.

Homer, a Salesian High grad and the 2015 world silver medalist who is ranked 10th in the world, lost the gold medal match to Hungary’s Aron Szilagyi, 15-8. A few years after he first heard of the sport, he saw a commercial featuring two fencers promoting New York City’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and he was smitten.

From the day he first read about the sport in a children’s dictionary to Wednesday in Rio, Daryl Homer’s focus remained on fencing.

“I was like ‘No regrets”.

A Bronx fencer took home silver in the men’s saber competition in Rio Wednesday night.

So, as Homer accepted his silver medal on his sport’s grandest stage, following in Westbrook’s footsteps, it was impossible to not think that for him, and for his mentor, everything had come full circle. “If I lose doing this, I’m going to lose doing this and I don’t care.’ And that was literally how I rolled out”, Homer said.

“Beyond humbled”, the St. John’s grad tweeted after the performance. “We are very competitive with each other, and it’s great”. He is one of the fastest competitors here and my strategy was to break his dynamism in the middle so I didn’t let him attack me aggressively.

Another 2012 champion, Elisa Di Francisca, nearly grabbed her second consecutive Olympic foil title but the Italian’s valiant fight back ran out of time and she took silver behind Russian Inna Deriglazova.

Deriglazova found herself up a point with just 2.5 seconds left, a situation that tested the old adage that athletes who compete not to lose typically lose.

Deriglazova said she was just trying to hang on. “I ran to my mom and said that’s”.