Sad to hear this. Greg was on the SJSU team one generation before me.

Olympic dream derailed: Stanford fencer Massialas spends days in COVID isolation, loses 1st match
Ann Killion
Updated: July 25, 2021 11:03 p.m.

San Francisco fencer Alexander Massialas lost his first Olympic match Monday, ending his dreams of adding another Olympic medal to his collection and continuing a nightmarish week due to COVID-19 protocols.
Massialas spent the past eight days quarantined in a hotel, apart from his teammates in the Olympic village. He was placed into contact tracing due to being seated on his flight to Japan near beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb, who tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the Games last week.
Crabb, who said he is vaccinated, has remained in quarantine at his hotel.
Massialas, who is vaccinated and continues to test negative, was quarantined completely for three days and then allowed to only do certain kinds of limited training, but not be near any of his teammates.
“I’m obviously really disappointed,” said Massialas by Facetime after his loss to Germany’s Peter Joppich. “I’ve been trying to stay positive and make the best of a bad situation.”
But his father Greg, a former Olympic fencer, and a coach for the fencing team, thinks the week took its toll on his son.
“He’s been locked up in isolation and I think it got to him,” Greg said.
The ordeal started after Massialas landed in Tokyo and was held for 12 hours at the airport. He was taken to a quarantine hotel and stayed there for three days. Then he was transferred to another hotel, where more of Team USA is staying, but remained under strict protocols.
The three-time Olympian, who won a silver individual medal and a bronze team medal in Rio, spent much of the week wondering if he would be able to compete at all. He finally received clearance to compete in his foil match on Monday a few days ago. But he was unable to train with his teammates.
After the disappointment, he is looking toward Sunday’s team competition. He hopes by then, he will have been cleared to move into the village.
“Everyone’s flying blind - there’s not a lot of clarity,” Massialas said. “But the best athletes have the shortest memories. I’ll take some time to be upset and sad but then I’ll look forward to winning gold with my teammates.”
Massialas qualified for Tokyo several weeks before the Games were postponed. He spent 2020 training in his parents’ San Francisco home and working to save Stanford sports, including fencing. He was a key member of “36 Sports Strong” the Stanford alumni group that successfully fought to overturn the university’s decision to drop 11 sports.
Ranked fifth in the world, Massialas had hopes for gold at his third Olympics. He also looked forward to sharing the experience with his younger sister Sabrina, who is on her first Olympic team. He had hoped to walk in opening ceremonies with her and hang out in the village. Instead, Monday was the first time he saw her.
“I’m trying to get her to enjoy the moment, because this is something she’s dreamed of for a long time,” Massialas said. “Sometimes life throws something at you that you didn’t expect.”
Though Crabb was vaccinated and is apparently a breakthrough case, Massialas wishes that all his teammates were vaccinated because he’s an example of exactly what’s at risk. Close to 100 U.S. Olympians are unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. All are rolling the dice with not only their own Olympic dreams but those of their teammates.
“It’s definitely perplexing,” said Massialas, who added that the entire fencing team is vaccinated. “I like to think about my teammates and whether or not I’m putting them in a dangerous situation. I don’t want to hurt them in any way.”
Massialas’ five-year dream was derailed by the seat he was assigned on an airplane.
“Sometimes you get unlucky in life,” he said. “But at least I got to compete. And I will try to help my team win.”
Massialas’ teammate Gerek Meinhardt, another San Francisco native, also lost his first match on Monday. His potential pre-match distraction was for a far happier reason than Massialas. His wife Lee Kiefer won gold in individual foil on Sunday. The married fencers are both in medical school at the University of Kentucky.
“I think he had a really emotional, wonderful day and was a little bit drained,” said Greg Massialas.
The men’s team event will take place on August 1.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @annkillion
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Quote Originally Posted by YinOrYan View Post
Uh, can you point me some good examples??? If so, beach volleyball dresscode is the next level, then the Americans may score better with all the young judges, since older experienced judges are not allowed for wushu, ha ha
srsly? Have you watched any world competition Wushu in the last half decade? It's not quite as sequined and embroidered as ice skaters yet, but it's aspiring to be so. It's definitely moving that direction.