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About The Bay: Taking A Stab At The Summer Olympics

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - Fencing may not be the most iconic of Olympic sports, but the Bay Area will be represented, nonetheless, at the Summer 2012 games in London.

It's alternately described as a physical chess game and a delicate dance. Fencing moves are often swift and subtle, part of the reason why the telecasts replay fencing moves in super slow motion - so the layman can see what happened.

You could actually consider an Olympic fencing match an historical event.

"It's actually one of the only three or four sports that has been in every single modern Olympic games," declared 18-year-old Alexander Massialis, a San Franciscan on the U.S. Olympic Fencing Team. He's been fencing since the age of 3.

KCBS' Mike Sugerman Reports:

"The action you see is so fast, it's hard to follow," added his dad, Greg Massialis, a three-time Olympian himself. He is leading a team of locals to London. "Even the trained fencers and coaches and the referees have a tough time calling the action."

"Three of the top five in the country are my students from here in the Bay Area," he proudly explained. "So, yes, it's becoming a hotbed of fencing."

"I told my dad from the very beginning, even though I may not have really understood the grandeur of the games, I was like I'm going to be an Olympic gold medalist someday," his son Alexander said hopefully.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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