Group hug for U.S. fencers

BEIJING – The group hug finally broke up just in front of the stands at the Olympic Fencing Hall, three young women in Team USA warmups fresh off the medal stand, six eyes in varying states of watery irritation. The gentleman in the front row, moved by the show of emotion, merely did what any gentleman would do in that situation, which was to reach into his pocket and produce a neatly folded white handkerchief, handing it down to the one most in need of it.

Sada Jacobson, her silver medal still hanging around her neck by a bright red ribbon, laughed, dabbed her eyes and handed it back. And the man in the front row laughed with her and dabbed his own eyes. Only moments later did Jacobson think, “Maybe I should have kept it.”

But by then the hanky, full of the tears of an Olympic medalist, was back in the pocket of former President George H.W. Bush, who caught wind of history being made Saturday – the first American sweep of an Olympic fencing event – and rushed over to witness it.

Only a few minutes earlier, the trio stepped onto the medal stand – gold medalist Mariel Zagunis in the center, Jacobson to her right and bronze medalist Becca Ward to her left.

“We couldn’t ask for better results – three American flags being raised,” said Zagunis, of Beaverton, Ore., who, along with her top prize from the 2004 Athens Games, now owns the only two American gold medals in fencing in the past century.

The United States once went more than 50 years (from 1932 to 1984) without a single Olympic medal, and 100 years without a gold. But suddenly the United States has become a power, at least in the specialized discipline of women’s saber.

“It would have been like landing on the moon (was perceived) in the 1920s,” said David Jacobson, Sada’s father and a former member of the U.S. National fencing team in the 1970s, when asked to place Saturday’s sweep in the context of his own era.

Scalpers persevere

There may be swarms of security volunteers and police officers posted every 100 feet along Beijing’s main roads, but scalpers are still managing to find unguarded pieces of sidewalk to tout the hottest tickets in town.

“Oh-limp-ick-uh tickets!” says a man in broken English, leaning by a tree. As the Olympic Games launch in the Chinese capital, scalpers are selling the coveted sporting billets despite threats of being sent to labor camps if caught.

The police have told Chinese media that ticket scalpers can be detained for 10 to 15 days, but also raised the threat of re-education camps, where Chinese can be sentenced to manual labor without trial.