Alexander Massialas Parents

Alexander Massialas is an American foil fencer who has represented the United States in three Olympic Games - 2012 London, 2016 Rio de Janeiro, and 2021 Tokyo. He has had an accomplished career so far, winning an individual silver medal and two team bronze medals in the Olympics. Massialas is a two-time NCAA champion, 11-time team Pan American champion, two-time individual Pan American champion, and 2019 team world champion.

Born on April 20, 1994, in San Francisco, California, Massialas started training in fencing at the age of seven. He was an athletic child, playing soccer and curating basketball and swimming teams at Drew School. Massialas enrolled at Stanford University in the fall of 2012 on a fencing scholarship and closed his freshman season by winning the 2013 NCAA title in individual men's foil.

Who are Alexander Massialas' Parents?

Alexander Massialas' parents are Greg Massialas (father) and Vivian Massialas (mother). His father, Greg Massialas, is a former Olympian who fenced for the United States in the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics and currently coaches the American national foil team. Not a lot of information is available about his mother.

Who is Alexander Massialas' Father?

Greg Massialas is Alexander's father. He is a Greek-American former Olympic fencer and as of the current year 2024, national coach of the United States senior foil fencing team. Born on May 20, 1956, in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, he migrated with his family to the United States in the mid-1960s, settling in Michigan.

Massialas took up fencing at age 10 after stumbling upon a fencing class. He competed throughout high school and college, finishing as the runner-up at the 1976 NCAA championships. With his sights set on the Olympics, the 1980 Moscow Games were to be his best shot at a medal, but he did not get to compete due to the U.S. boycott in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Though he went on to fence at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Olympics, Massialas' best competitive years had passed without an Olympic medal. After retiring as an athlete, he initially planned to stay involved as a referee before his wife Vivian convinced him to take up coaching instead.

In the late 1990s, Massialas started coaching for after-school fencing programs in San Francisco. As mentioned in an article from the Los Angeles Times, he established an intense training philosophy, combining techniques from Hungary, Italy, France, and Germany with an American fast-track approach to accelerating fencers' development from a young age.

His vision was to produce Olympic champions from the United States, which had only won a couple of Olympic fencing medals over the previous half-century.

Massialas founded the Massialas Foundation fencing club, known as M-Team, in San Francisco. The club has produced elite foil fencers like Gerek Meinhardt, the first American man to be ranked #1 in the world, and Massialas' son Alexander, an Olympic silver medalist who has also held the #1 world ranking. His daughter Sabrina is another accomplished product of the M-Team program.

Since 2012, Greg Massialas has served as the national coach for the U.S. men's foil team. Under his coaching, the American foil squad has risen to one of the best in the world, with multiple medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships, and other major international competitions.

Greg Massialas' Accomplishments:

What Ethnicity are Alexander Massialas' Parents?

Alexander Massialas' father, Greg Massialas, is of Greek descent, born in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, and later immigrated to the United States. His mother, Vivian Massialas, is of Taiwanese descent.