Mariel Zagunis was stunned. She couldn't explain how a big lead in the semifinals turned into an even-bigger collapse. She couldn't avoid a similar fate in the bronze-medal match, either. And afterward, it even took her a few moments to remember that she was in London.
"I guess I'm just in disbelief," Zagunis said.
With good reason, the face of US fencing and the flag bearer for the entire American contingent at the Olympic opening ceremony last week, not only was denied a third straight gold medal, but she's going home without any medal at all.
Zagunis dropped her last two matches in the women's sabre event yesterday, after seeing a 12-5 edge over Kim Jiyeon of South Korea get wasted in what became a 15-13 semifinal loss. Not long afterward, and still reeling, Zagunis lost nine of the final 11 points to fall 15-10 to Olga Kharlan of Ukraine in the bronze bout.
For Zagunis, it was an unimaginable fate.
"Even now, it's all pretty surreal," Zagunis said.
It was a double-dose of coming close for the Americans, who won six medals in fencing in Beijing.
Seth Kelsey lost the bronze-medal match in men's epee to South Korea's Jung Jinsun, 12-11 in extra time. Kelsey walked away from the piste with no regrets, having never before won an Olympic individual match. Zagunis left in a far different mindset.
"And now I don't have a medal, which is really strange," Zagunis said. "I've never been in this position before at the Olympics. So, yeah, I guess I'm in disbelief."
South Korea's Kim went on to win the women's sabre gold over Russia's Sofya Velikaya, while Ruben Limardo of Venezuela took the men's epee gold-medal matchup over Bartosz Piasecki of Norway.
Kelsey, who was bidding to deliver the first individual epee medal to the US since 1928, nearly beat Limardo in the semifinals, falling 6-5 and just like in the bronze match, it came in extra time.
With the score locked at 11-11 and time running out in the third period, Kelsey asked Jung if he wanted to simply go into overtime. One touch, one point, for a bronze medal, and Jung agreed.
It was a gamble, and for Kelsey, it didn't pay off.
"I've always been disappointed in my previous Olympic performances," said Kelsey, who lost his opening fight at both the Athens Games in 2004 and the Beijing Games in 2008, but helped the US win the team epee gold at the world championship earlier this year and beat 2010 world champion Nikolai Novosjolov of Estonia in the second round yesterday.
"And today, I beat three great guys, I gave myself the best possible shot," he said.
Zagunis simply could not say the same.
Just about every element of Zagunis' Olympic history had been charmed, until now.
Zagunis' world ranking was not high enough for her to qualify as part of the US team for the 2004 Athens Games, and she gained entry only after Nigeria refused to allow its top-ranked athlete, about 100 spots below Zagunis on the world list at the time, to compete at those Olympics, a move that freed up a spot that eventually went to Zagunis.
She made the most of the chance, becoming the first American to win a fencing gold medal in 100 years.
Four years later in Beijing, Zagunis did it again, leading a 1-2-3 medal sweep for the Americans in sabre.
The bronze-medal loss wasn't what stung Zagunis afterward, it was letting that huge lead against Kim get away.
"Things started happening really quickly and I wasn't landing my attacks," Zagunis said. "All of a sudden it was 12-10, 13-10, 13-13. So, things just happened way too fast. I should have slowed down with my attacks. I should have slowed down the entire bout. It really was like I pretty much handed it to her. It was all my mistakes that cost me the bout," said Zagunis.
