Daryl Homer

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Daryl Homer
Daryl Homer 2015 WCh SMS-IN t204617.jpg
Personal information
Born (1990-07-16) July 16, 1990 (age 31)
Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
NationalityAmerican
Height1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight85 kg (187 lb)
Sport
SportFencing
WeaponSabre
Handright-handed
FIE rankingcurrent ranking
Medal record
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 2016 Rio de Janeiro Individual
World Championships
Silver medal – second place 2015 Moscow Individual
Pan American Games
Gold medal – first place 2015 Toronto Team
Gold medal – first place 2019 Lima Individual
Gold medal – first place 2019 Lima Team
Pan American Championships
Gold medal – first place 2011 Reno Individual
Gold medal – first place 2011 Reno Team
Gold medal – first place 2012 Cancún Team
Gold medal – first place 2013 Cartagena Team
Gold medal – first place 2014 San José Team
Bronze medal – third place 2013 Cartagena Individual
Bronze medal – third place 2014 San José Individual

Daryl Homer (born July 16, 1990) is an American Olympic saber fencer.

He competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics.[1] He won the silver medal in individual saber at the 2016 Olympics. He was also a silver medalist at the 2015 World Fencing Championships, and is a five-time gold medalist at the Pan American Fencing Championships.

Personal life[]

Homer was born on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, to Juliette Smith and Daryl Homer.[2] At the age of five, Homer moved to New York City with his mother and younger sister D’Meca, to an apartment on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. Homer attended Public School 21 there before going to Salesian High School[3] in New Rochelle. He eventually graduated from St. John’s University, with a degree in advertising communications. He now works for advertising and marketing agency Anomaly.[2]

Homer speaks to inner city youth about balancing his career with his athletic passions. He is a brand ambassador at Fencing in the Schools, a non-profit that aims to enrich the lives of students in the inner city through fencing. The program focuses on the health benefits, life skills, and exposure fencing can provide students in impoverished neighborhoods.

Fencing career[]

Homer started fencing at the age of 11, after happening on a picture of a masked fencer in the dictionary, and finding it "very cool".[4] He joined the Peter Westbrook Foundation in New York City, a program dedicated to exposing inner city youth to fencing started by six-time Olympian and 1984 Olympic bronze medalist Peter Westbrook.[2] Homer chose saber because Westbrook himself had been a sabreur.[4]

Homer was quickly identified as a talented athlete, and began working with four-time Olympic coach Yury Gelman immediately. He won a bronze medal at the 2007 Cadet World Fencing Championships, and another bronze at the 2009 Junior World Championships in Belfast. That same year he competed in his first senior World Championships in Antalya, finishing 23rd, and took the NCAA title as a sophomore.

In the 2009–10 season Homer defended successfully his NCAA title. At the 2010 World Championships in Paris he defeated successively France's Boladé Apithy and Nicolas Lopez to reach the round of 16, and finished 12th. The next season, he won the gold medal at the 2011 Pan American Championships.

He redshirted the following season to train for the 2012 Summer Olympics, for which he qualified as a member of the top-ranked team of the Americas zone. In the individual event he defeated 15–9 Romania's Tiberiu Dolniceanu in the first round, then had a narrow 15–14 victory of world No. 2, Russia's Aleksey Yakimenko. He lost 15–14 in the quarter-finals to another Romanian, Rareș Dumitrescu, and finished sixth.[5] In the team event, the USA lost to Russia in the quarter-finals and finished eighth.[5] He finished the 2011–12 season no. 12 in FIE rankings.

Homer (R) scores from a flunge at the 2015 World Fencing Championships

Homer maintained this ranking in the next season thanks to three quarter-final placings in the World Cup and a bronze medal at the 2013 Pan American Championships. He placed 11th at the end of the 2013–14 season. In the 2014–15 season he climbed his first World Cup podium with a bronze medal in the Seoul Grand Prix.[6]

As of July 1, 2016, he was ranked #2 in the United States, behind Team USA teammate Eli Dershwitz.[7]

He competed for the United States in fencing at the 2016 Summer Olympics.[8] He won the silver medal.[9] He became the first U.S. medalist in men's saber since Peter Westbrook won a bronze medal in 1984 and the first U.S. men's silver medalist since William Grebe in 1904. The U.S. has never won gold in men's saber.[10] Shortly after his Olympic silver medal, he left long-time coach Yury Gelman and the Manhattan Fencing Center for another coach.

He has qualified to represent the United States in fencing at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Daryl Homer". 2012 Summer Olympics. Retrieved August 31, 2012.
  2. ^ a b c Maureen Hannan (April 15, 2015). "How to Chase a Gold Medal and Grow a 401K: Olympian Daryl Homer". The Huffington Post.
  3. ^ "Daryl Homer". Team USA. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Liz Belilovskaya (July 26, 2012). "Young, Aggressive and Quick With a Point". 2012 London Olympics NYT blog.
  5. ^ a b "Daryl Homer Olympic results". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  6. ^ "Limbach and Kharlan take sabre gold at South Korea Fencing Grand Prix". Eurosport. April 1, 2015.
  7. ^ "Eli Dershwitz | Sports | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com.
  8. ^ Cutler, Jacqueline. "New Yorkers Miles Chamley-Watson, Daryl Homer use different styles in quest for fencing gold at Rio Olympics". nydailynews.com.
  9. ^ Brennan, Christine. "American Daryl Homer wins historic silver in men's sabre fencing". USA TODAY.
  10. ^ [1]

External links[]

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