CHIBA, Japan — Nick Itkin, a current student at the University of Notre Dame, and Gerek Meinhardt, a four-time fencing Olympian and Notre Dame graduate, teamed up to help the United States win a bronze medal in Men's Team Foil at the Tokyo Olympics Sunday.
The U.S. team advanced to the semifinals early Sunday morning before falling 45-41 to the Russian Olympic Committee team.
But they came back to dominate in the bronze medal match to beat Japan 45-31.
The medal for Meinhardt means he and his wife, Lee Kiefer, will both take home foil fencing medals from Tokyo. Kiefer won the Women's Individual Foil gold medal in the first week of the Games. She was the only individual U.S. medalist at the Games.
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Meinhardt also won a bronze medal in the same event in 2016. Itkin is the only member of the foil team who wasn’t in Rio to win the bronze.
The U.S. was ahead of the ROC in the semifinal but fell after leading 35-32. They never trailed against Japan.
The women’s foil team of Jackie Dubrovich, Kiefer, Nicole Ross and Sabrina Massialas also made it to the bronze medal match, but lost a one-side contest with Italy 45-23.
In the team competition, each team has three members and one in reserve, competing in a round-robin format. There are nine sets of three-minute rounds with a maximum of five points for each round. The first team to score 45 points, or the team with the highest score after all nine rounds, is the winner.
