How Brooklyn-born fencer Anne Cebula is savoring Olympics ‘childhood dream’

Everything is official when it’s posted on social media, including Olympic qualifying results.

Just ask first-time Olympic fencer and Brooklyn native Anne Cebula, who, upon learning in March she had qualified for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, encountered disbelief from her parents before the results were shared online.

“I’m calling my parents and even my parents didn’t believe me, they’re like, ‘Are you sure?’ They didn’t believe it until it was posted on Instagram ,” Cebula, 26, recently recalled with a laugh to The Post.

“I was like, they’re going to post it in a week and a half… They believed a week and a half later. They’re still surprised about it. They’re like me, they’ll realize once they’re in Paris and it hits them.”

USA Fencing confirmed this spring that Cebula qualified for the individual and team events in Women’s epee, one of three weapons used in fencing, along with the saber and foil, and is regarded as “the descendant of the dueling sword.”

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“It’s a childhood dream,” Cebula said. “[I’m] just over the moon.”

Cebula’s Olympics opportunity comes 16 years after she first fell in love with the sport at age 10 when she first caught highlights from the 2008 Beijing Games.

“It was Team USA vs. Russia for the silver medal and Keeth Smart nails the final touch, 45-44, and he’s screaming and yelling and I was like, oh my gosh, this is like an opera, I want to do this sport there, on that stage under those lights. Just seeing the pinnacle of my sport is what got me into it,” she recalled.

However, Cebula didn’t take her first stab at the sport until years later, courtesy of a free fencing club at her high school, Brooklyn Tech.

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“I asked my parents and they’re like, ‘No, this is ridiculously expensive, clearly just a phase,'” she said. “… but I always kept it quietly in the back of my mind.”

From there, Cebula, who went on to fence at Columbia, was tossed into epee, or “freestyle fencing,” in which “touches are scored only with the point of the blade, and the entire body, head‐to‐toe, is the valid target area, imitating an actual duel,” according to USA Fencing.

“Traditionally, Epeeists are taller, we’re more aerobic and built mostly like a distance runner if you will,” Cebula said. “Normally, you get to try all three when you start at age 8 or 9, but they’re like, time is ticking, go to epee.”

Much like her introduction to epee, Cebula — who previously shined in the City of Lights as a Paris Fashion Week model — will be thrust into the action once the Olympics get underway, with the women’s individual epee event taking place on July 27.

Given her early start time, Cebula plans to skip the Opening Ceremonies the night before.

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“Our team manager, she was joking, she was like, ‘If you do end up going, just make sure I don’t see you. If you sneak in, just make sure I don’t see you,'” she said with a laugh. “I’m not planning on it, if I do somehow have a change of heart, whatever, for now, I’m not going to go.”

With the team event wrapping up days later on July 30, Cebula is looking forward to “chilling in the Olympic village and exploring” Paris as she stays through the conclusion of the games on Aug. 11.

“Our sport is so small, we have world championships every year and there’s maybe 50 people in the crowd so just to hang out and be in the presence of A) other sports, but B) people visiting to watch us is just amazing,” she said.

With her first shot at Olympic glory looming, Cebula took in words of advice from Erinn Smart, the sister of fencer Keeth Smart, whose performance originally piqued her interest in the sport.

“She told me to just really enjoy every moment, and also be ready for craziness,” Cebula said of Erinn, who was thrust into the Olympic spotlight herself in 2008 as an anchor and won a silver medal for the foil team event.

“She was like be ready for anything, trust yourself and everyone’s nervous, so just go in and have fun and take advantage of that if you will.”

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