Daryl Homer (born July 16, 1990) is an American right-handed saber fencer, three-time Olympian, and 2016 individual Olympic silver medalist.[1]

Daryl Homer
Personal information
Born (1990-07-16) July 16, 1990 (age 34)
Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
NationalityAmerican
Height1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight85 kg (187 lb)
Sport
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

Homer competed in the 2012 London Olympic Games, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.[2]

Homer is an eight-time team Pan American champion and three-time individual Pan American champion.

Personal life

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Homer was born on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, to Juliette Smith and Daryl Homer.[3] 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[4] 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.[3]

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.[citation needed]

Fencing career

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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".[5] 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.[3] Homer chose saber because Westbrook himself had been a sabreur.[5]

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.[6] In the team event, the USA lost to Russia in the quarter-finals and finished eighth.[6] 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.[7]

As of July 1, 2016, he was ranked #2 in the United States, behind Team USA teammate Eli Dershwitz.[8]

He competed for the United States in fencing at the 2016 Summer Olympics.[9] He won the silver medal.[10] 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.[11] Shortly after his Olympic silver medal, he left long-time coach Yury Gelman and the Manhattan Fencing Center for another coach.

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

Medal record

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Olympic Games

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Year Location Event Position
2016   Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Individual Men's Sabre 2nd[12]

World Championship

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Year Location Event Position
2015   Moscow, Russia Individual Men's Sabre 2nd[13]

Pan American Championship

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Date Location Event Position
2010   San José, Costa Rica Team Men's Sabre 1st[14]
2011   Reno, Nevada Individual Men's Sabre 1st[15]
2011   Reno, Nevada Team Men's Sabre 1st[16]
2012   Cancún, Mexico Team Men's Sabre 1st[17]
2013   Cartagena, Colombia Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[18]
2014   San José, Costa Rica Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[19]
2015   Santiago, Chile Individual Men's Sabre 2nd[20]
2016   Panama City, Panama Team Men's Sabre 1st[21]
2017   Montreal, Canada Individual Men's Sabre 1st[22]
2017   Montreal, Canada Team Men's Sabre 1st[23]
2018   Havana, Cuba Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[24]
2018   Havana, Cuba Team Men's Sabre 1st[25]
2019   Toronto, Canada Individual Men's Sabre 2nd[26]
2019   Toronto, Canada Team Men's Sabre 1st[27]
2022   Asunción, Paraguay Individual Men's Sabre 1st[28]
2022   Asunción, Paraguay Team Men's Sabre 1st[29]

Grand Prix

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Date Location Event Position
2015-03-28   Seoul, South Korea Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[30]

World Cup

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Date Location Event Position
2016-11-04   Dakar, Senegal Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[31]
2018-05-18   Madrid, Spain Individual Men's Sabre 3rd[32]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  2. ^ "Daryl Homer". 2012 Summer Olympics. Archived from the original on January 28, 2013. Retrieved August 31, 2012.
  3. ^ a b c Maureen Hannan (April 15, 2015). "How to Chase a Gold Medal and Grow a 401K: Olympian Daryl Homer". The Huffington Post.
  4. ^ "Daryl Homer". Team USA. Archived from the original on July 31, 2015. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Liz Belilovskaya (July 26, 2012). "Young, Aggressive and Quick With a Point". 2012 London Olympics NYT blog.
  6. ^ a b "Daryl Homer Olympic results". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  7. ^ "Limbach and Kharlan take sabre gold at South Korea Fencing Grand Prix". Eurosport. April 1, 2015.
  8. ^ "Eli Dershwitz | Sports | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com.
  9. ^ Cutler, Jacqueline. "New Yorkers Miles Chamley-Watson, Daryl Homer use different styles in quest for fencing gold at Rio Olympics". nydailynews.com.
  10. ^ Brennan, Christine. "American Daryl Homer wins historic silver in men's sabre fencing". USA Today.
  11. ^ Daryl Homer Scores Team USA's First Men's Saber Silver Since 1904 teamusa.org
  12. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  13. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  14. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  15. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  16. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  17. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  18. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  19. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  20. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  21. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  22. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  23. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  24. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  25. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  26. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  27. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  28. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  29. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  30. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  31. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  32. ^ "INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website". FIE.org. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
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