Alexander Massialas


Alexander Massialas is an American foil fencer, team silver medallist in the 2014 World Fencing Championships. At the 2016 Summer Olympics he competed in the Men's foil and earned a silver medal; he also earned a bronze medal in Men's team foil.

Biography

Massialas was born in San Francisco, California, to a father of Greek descent and a Taiwanese mother. His father, Greg Massialas, fenced for the United States in the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, and currently coaches the American national foil team. His sister, Sabrina, is also a high-level foil fencer. Despite this, Massialas was never pushed into fencing. After he showed spontaneous interest at an early age, his father made him wait until he was seven years old to begin training.
An athletic child, Massialas played soccer and made the basketball and the swimming teams at Drew School. He enrolled at Stanford University on a fencing scholarship in the fall of 2012. He closed his freshman season by winning the 2013 NCAA title in individual men's foil. He repeated this feat in 2015, after falling to David Willette in 2014's semifinal round.