Canadian Penn Fencing alum Blake Broszus was eliminated from the Olympic foil event. (Photo from Canadian Fencing Federation)
Sports is all about peaking at the right moments. For recent Penn graduate Blake Broszus, there was no time better to hit his stride than ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
As a foilist on the Penn fencing team, the San Jose, Calif. native was part of a team that made Penn program history this past year. Broszus’ efforts at the 2024 NCAA Fencing Championships set up a final match that guaranteed that a Quaker would bring home the individual title — a feat that had not been accomplished in 27 years.
Ultimately, Broszus fell just short, coming in second to teammate and recent graduate Bryce Louie, but the second place finish at the biggest stage in the collegiate world prepared Broszus’ to achieve his goal of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Broszus is no stranger to the Olympics. The two-time NCAA qualifier appeared at his first games in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where he helped the Canadian side to a ninth-place finish in the men’s foil team. The nod for a spot on the team came after earning two straight bronze medals at the junior Pan American Championships in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Ahead of the 2024 Olympics, Broszus placed fifth in the foil at the 2023 Pan American Games, leading Canada to a silver-medal finish in the team foil event. The performance was more than enough to secure himself a spot on the contingent of athletes that Team Canada was sending to Paris. Broszus is also one of 12 athletes with Penn affiliations to make the trip this year.
Broszus kicked off his time in Paris on a strong note, taking the strip for his first bout on July 29. Continuing the winning momentum that Broszus had built up over his senior season representing the Red and Blue, the recent Wharton graduate bested Kruz Schembri of the U.S. Virgin Islands with an emphatic 15-8 scoreline in the men's foil individual round of 64.
Unfortunately for Broszus, he would hit a wall in the round of 32. Coming up against Italy’s Tommaso Marini, Broszus found himself on the wrong side of a 15-9 scoreline, bowing out of the competition prematurely.
With the result, Broszus was ultimately unable to fulfill his ambitions of podiuming individually at the 2024 Olympics. Despite the loss, Broszus’ time representing Team Canada hasn’t come to an end just yet. Broszus is set to compete again in Paris in the men’s team foil competition, looking to improve on the group’s ninth-place finish three years prior.
Canada is set to kick things off in the competition in a quarterfinal face-off against Japan on Aug. 4 at 5:50 a.m. EDT. Beyond that, Broszus is also slated to compete later this year at the Tournoi Satellite in the men’s foil individual that is set to take place in Bucharest, Romania on Sept. 21.
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