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Upon Returning from Beijing, Fencing Champ Will Be Law School Bound

By Dan Slater

USA’s gold medal winner Mariel Zagunis is flanked by silver medal winner Sada Jacobson, left, and bronze medal winner Becca Ward, right, on the podium after the women’s individual saber at the Fencing Hall of the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Aug. 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

We’ve never seen a fencing match before, though we remember thinking the sport was full of intrigue as it was dramatized in Barry Levinson’s 1985 movie, “Young Sherlock Holmes.”

Fencing was all the rage yesterday, as the U.S. women’s team made history by sweeping the individual sabre competition. It marked the first time a country has swept the medals in an individual fencing event since Germany did it in women’s foil at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. But, as noted by USA Today, even with that great accomplishment under their belts, the fencers, unlike Kobe and LeBron, must go back to life as usual after the Beijing games. For Mariel Zagunis, who won the gold, that means eventually returning to college at Notre Dame. Becca Ward, who snagged the bronze, will start at Duke in the fall.

And Sada Jacobson, the silver medal winner? Come fall, Jacobson — who fell behind 8-5 to Russia’s Sofiya Velikaya in the semifinals before rebounding for a 15-11 victory — will be cracking open the case books at the University of Michigan Law School. We wish Sada the best of luck in law school, and we hope she can lunge her way through J.J. White’s commercial transactions class with the same grace she used to take apart Velikaya.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 11, 2008 (boomark / email).