Former Penn State fencing standout and Olympian Miles Chamley-Watson added yet another achievement to his already impressive resume this past week, becoming the first American to win a gold medal in the Senior World Fencing Championship.

Chamley-Watson was able to take down Italian fencer Valerio Aspromonte 15-9 in the evening semifinals. He followed that with a decisive 15-6 victory over the Russian Artur Akhmatkhuzin, a three-time medalist on the 2013 World Cup Circuit.

In the earlier rounds, Chamley-Watson defeated Bojan Jovanovic of Croatia 15-12 and won the next three matches each by a score of 15-14 in come-from-behind fashion.

Naturally, Chamley-Watson was not pleased with any of the 15-14 bouts.

“I didn’t want any more 15-14s,” he said. “I had a fair amount of luck during the day and knew that I was going to have to win a bout by more than 15-14. I was happy that I was able to do it and that my last two bouts were my best bouts of the day.”

Despite the close calls early on, Chamley-Watson’s domination in the last two matches were what lead to his gold medal. “It feels great to win,” he added. “It’s the first gold medal in men’s foil ever for the U.S. and I’m happy I was able to do it.”

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