USA Fencing

(San Francisco, Calif.) – Six members of Team USA will enjoy a home advantage on Saturday after qualifying for the table of 64 at the San Francisco Foil World Cup.

Thirty-one Americans fenced during the first day of competition on Friday at Kezar Pavilion while three athletes earned exemptions into the table of 64 due to their top-16 world rankings.

London Olympians Gerek Meinhardt (San Francisco, Calif.), Alexander Massialas (San Francisco, Calif.) and Race Imboden (Brooklyn, N.Y.) began the tournament with world rankings of fourth, seventh and 10th, respectively.

Their 2012 teammate, Miles Chamley-Watson (New York City, N.Y.) fenced in the pool rounds of a World Cup for the first time since winning the Senior World Championships in 2013.

Chamley-Watson came into the tournament with two goals: returning to the podium and raising money to support breast cancer.

Through a CrowdRise campaign, Chamley-Watson is hoping to raise $5,000 in donations for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and is pledging to donate $2 for each touch he scores throughout the tournament.

“Cancer has killed a couple of my family members and so it’s something that’s close to me,” Chamley-Watson said. “I’ve gotten a lot of amazing feedback from people, so hopefully it catches on and people help support curing this disease because it’s killed too many people.  

He got the cause off to a good start with 30 scores as he finished 6-0 after the pool rounds.

“I haven’t fenced pools at a World Cup in so long, so I was happy I could go 6-0 and go straight through. It’s great getting to compete at home; I’ve been training really hard and I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Chamley-Watson said.

Competing half an hour from his hometown of Lafayette, the San Francisco Foil World Cup is David Willette’s first international tournament since May.

After a 3-3 pool result, the two-time Junior World Team Champion defeated Adam Mathieu (Union City, N.J.), 15-9, in the first preliminary table round.

With one more win needed to qualify for the second day, Willette fenced 2012 Junior World silver medalist Daniel Garozzo (ITA) in the next round.

The Italian built a 7-0 lead, but Willette fought back for a 15-14 victory.

“I think that, for both pools and DEs, I started slow every bout so that kind of makes me nervous going into tomorrow, but I finished strong in both of my DEs,” Willette said. “Going down 7-0 isn’t something that boosts your confidence, but being able to stay in it and convince myself that I had a shot the whole way and retain my focus is something I’m happy with. Knowing that 7-0 is a huge deficit and the margin of error is so small, I was able to stay focused and keep enough confidence that I wasn’t letting up.”

Jerry Chang (Mountain View, Calif.), a 2012 Junior World Team Champion, got off to a slow start with a 2-3 result in pools.

In the preliminary tables, Chang won his first bout, 15-11, over Andrii Pogrebniak (UKR) and defeated Fernando Scavasin (BRA), 15-9, to qualify for the table of 64.

Click here to view complete results.

The following are the results for U.S. athletes who did not advance to the table of 64:

76. Geoffrey Tourette (Cupertino, Calif.)
78. Brian Kaneshige (Maplewood, N.J.)
79. William Upbin (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
81. Turner Caldwell (San Francisco, Calif.)
85. Nobuo Bravo (San Francisco, Calif.)
86. Michael Woo (Wayne, N.J.)
96. Aaron Ahn (Los Angeles, Calif.)
97. Aiden Ahn (Los Angeles, Calif.)
110. Adam Mathieu (Union City, N.J.)
120. Axel Kiefer (Lexington, Ky.)
122. James Sands (New York, N.Y.)
126. Darren Mei (Redwood City, Calif.)
131. Samuel Moelis (Hewlett, N.Y.)
137. Max Blitzer (Staten Island, N.Y.)
138. Kurt Getz (New York City, N.Y.)
142. David Hadler (San Francisco, Calif.)
145. Sidarth Kumbla (San Jose, Calif.)
150. Nolen Scruggs (Ozone Park, N.Y.)
155. Jan Maceczek (Marlboro, N.J.)
157. Julian Knodt (Palo Alto, Calif.)
161. Jarred Gou (Saratoga, Calif.)
167. Stephen Mageras (Darien, Conn.)
169. Raymond Chen (Dallas, Texas)
170. Brian Howard (Petaluma, Calif.)
173. Matthew Branman (Villanova, Pa.)
177. Lucas Orts (Burlingame, Calif.)
180. George Haglund (Califon, N.J.)
188. Michael Li (Palo Alto, Calif.)