Every little thing is official when it’s posted on social media, including Olympic qualifying results.
Just ask first-time Olympic fencer and Brooklyn native Anne Cebula, who, upon learning in March she had qualified for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, encountered disbelief from her parents before the outcomes were shared online.
“I’m calling my parents and even my parents didn’t consider me, they’re like, ‘Are you sure?’ They didn’t consider it until it was posted on Instagram,” Cebula, 26, recently recalled with fun to The Post.
“I used to be like, they’re going to post it in per week and a half… They believed per week and a half later. They’re still surprised about it. They’re like me, they’ll realize once they’re in Paris and it hits them.”
USA Fencing confirmed this spring that Cebula qualified for the person and team events in Women’s epee, considered one of three weapons utilized in fencing, together with the saber and foil, and is considered “the descendant of the dueling sword.”
“It’s a childhood dream,” Cebula said. “[I’m] just over the moon.”
Cebula’s Olympics opportunity comes 16 years after she first fell in love with the game at age 10 when she first caught highlights from the 2008 Beijing Games.
“It was Team USA vs. Russia for the silver medal and Keeth Smart nails the ultimate touch, 45-44, and he’s screaming and yelling and I used to be like, oh my gosh, that is like an opera, I need to do that sport there, on that stage under those lights. Just seeing the head of my sport is what got me into it,” she recalled.
Nevertheless, Cebula didn’t take her first stab at the game until years later, courtesy of a free fencing club at her highschool, Brooklyn Tech.
“I asked my parents they usually’re like, ‘No, that is ridiculously expensive, clearly only a phase,’” she said. “… but I all the time kept it quietly at the back of my mind.”
From there, Cebula, who went on to fence at Columbia, was tossed into epee, or “freestyle fencing,” by which “touches are scored only with the purpose of the blade, and your complete body, head‐to‐toe, is the valid goal area, imitating an actual duel,” in response to USA Fencing.
“Traditionally, Epeeists are taller, we’re more aerobic and built mostly like a distance runner if you happen to will,” Cebula said. “Normally, you get to try all three whenever you start at age 8 or 9, but they’re like, time is ticking, go to epee.”
Very like her introduction to epee, Cebula — who previously shined within the City of Lights as a Paris Fashion Week model — can be thrust into the motion once the Olympics get underway, with the ladies’s individual epee event happening on July 27.
Given her early start time, Cebula plans to skip the Opening Ceremonies the night before.
“Our team manager, she was joking, she was like, ‘If you happen to do find yourself going, just make certain I don’t see you. If you happen to sneak in, just make certain I don’t see you,’” she said with fun. “I’m not planning on it, if I do one way or the other have a change of heart, whatever, for now, I’m not going to go.”
With the team event wrapping up days in a while July 30, Cebula is looking forward to “chilling within the Olympic village and exploring” Paris as she stays through the conclusion of the games on Aug. 11.
“Our sport is so small, we now have world championships every yr and there’s perhaps 50 people in the gang so just to hang around and be within the presence of A) other sports, but B) people visiting to observe us is just amazing,” she said.
Along with her first shot at Olympic glory looming, Cebula took in words of recommendation from Erinn Smart, the sister of fencer Keeth Smart, whose performance originally piqued her interest in the game.
“She told me to only really enjoy every moment, and likewise be ready for craziness,” Cebula said of Erinn, who was thrust into the Olympic highlight herself in 2008 as an anchor and won a silver medal for the foil team event.
“She was like be ready for anything, trust yourself and everybody’s nervous, so just go in and rejoice and benefit from that if you happen to will.”
