Mariel Zagunis

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Women's Fencing
Olympic medal record
Gold	2004 Athens	Individual Sabre

Mariel Zagunis (born March 3, 1985) is an American Olympic sabre fencer.

[edit] Fencing career

She competed in the 2004 Athens Women's sabre competition, and was the first American to win an Olympic fencing gold medal in 100 years.

Her hometown is Beaverton, Oregon, and she entered the University of Notre Dame in 2004 on an athletic scholarship.

Zagunis is the daughter of Olympians as well. Her parents, Robert and Cathy Zagunis, were collegiate rowers (at Oregon State and Connecticut College, respectively) before competing with the U.S. rowing team at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Both of her brothers also fence sabre.

Zagunis has numerous unique accomplishments. She was the first American fencer to hold the Jr. World Cup Champion title (2002), and she did so 3 years in a row (2002, 2003, 2004). She is the youngest fencer ever to win the coveted Federation International d'Escrime (FIE) World Championship gold, and the youngest fencer to win 3 FIE medals in one season. Ms. Zagunis won the FIE over-all medal 3 years in a row. She was the first fencer in the history of the sport to hold more than 2 World Champion titles in one season (2001: Cadet, Jr. and Jr. Team titles). Rebecca Ward repeated this feat in 2006.

In October 2005 Zagunis captured her 7th World Champion title at the Leipzig, Germany World Championships, in the Women's team event. A year later at the 2006 World Fencing Championships she won the silver, after losing the final to Rebecca Ward.

Zagunis is currently ranked number one in the world in both Official and World Cup rankings for senior women sabre fencers, and is the second US fencer in history to have won the World Cup total-points Title from the FIE.

Both of her brothers also fence; older brother Marten and younger brother Merrick.