Jackie Dubrovich of Riverdale wins gold medal with U.S. women's fencing team

New Jersey's Jackie Dubrovich is bringing home an unprecedented Olympic gold medal in team fencing.

A Riverdale native now living in Maplewood, Dubrovich, 30, joined fellow Team USA foil fencers Lee Kiefer, Lauren Scruggs and Maia Weintraub on Thursday in winning the gold medal match over Italy. The American women's foil team had advanced to the semifinals in the last five world championships and won silver in the 2008 Games, but no U.S. fencing team had ever before won Olympic gold.

Dubrovic, a Pompton Lakes High School graduate who was Columbia University's 2016 female athlete of the year, suffered a repeat of her Games debut in 2021 when she was knocked out in the round of 32 during the individual foil competition earlier this week. However, she was able to bounce back in the team competition with teammates Kiefer and Scruggs, who respectively won individual gold and silver in a historic All-American final, and Princeton University's Maia Weintraub, who replaced Dubrovich partway through the team's gold medal match.

The individual Olympic gold was the second consecutive for Kiefer, the world's top-ranked woman foil fencer who won in Toyko and is now the most decorated athlete in U.S. Olympic fencing history.

Dubrovich, ranked 11th in the world by the International Fencing Federation (FIE), was part of the U.S. team that finished fourth in the 2021 Games in Tokyo. That team, which included Kiefer but not Scruggs, lost its bronze medal match to Italy.

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Dubrovich said in March that she was feeling confident going into what could be her last shot at an Olympic medal. She had decided to step away from her job as a marketing account strategist to fully focus on preparing for the Paris Games.

"I'm feeling good," she said "But I also know that my teammates are also really incredible fencers and they're capable of achieving good results. too."

In late February, Dubrovich and her team won gold at the FIE World Cup event in Cairo. Dubrovich also finished third in that event's individual foil competition, at another World Cup event in May in Hong Kong and at the Pan American Fencing Championships this June. The latter was won by Kiefer for the 11th time.

Dubrovich said that Kiefer, a four-time NCAA champion in individual foil, had been pushing her to "fence harder, fence smarter," as both a teammate and a competitor.

Team USA was seeded second going into the team competition. It beat teams from China and Canada to make the Olympic final against Italy.

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Prior to Thursday, Team USA had only won one medal in the women's team foil competition, which had its 15th edition in Paris. The team of Emily Cross, Erinn Smart and Hanna Thompson won silver in 2008.

The U.S. men's foil team won bronze in 2016 and 2020. It also won bronze in 1920 and silver in 1904. It has never won Olympic gold. The men's competition is set for Sunday. One member of the 2024 team, Nick Itkin, won bronze in the individual competition on July 29.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Jackie Dubrovich of Riverdale wins gold medal with U.S. women's fencing team