If you had told me when he made the switch that he would be on the Olympic team, I would have said he had a great shot. But if you had talked about winning World Cups and world championships, I would have said let's wait and see.

It's an important part of being on the Olympic team. I'll get a chance to feel the Olympic spirit. It can't be anything but a positive experience.

This was a year when the Olympic team should have been bigger. I know we'll have a good team, but we'll be missing some people who I personally hoped would make it.

We still have a long way to go. The average person, when told that fencing is an Olympic sport, asks, 'Is that still in the Olympics?' It's been in every Olympics there has ever been in the modern age. There's fencing in every summer Olympics and it never gets televised. There's no fencer who is a household name. About the closest we get to a national fencing figure is Peter Westbrook, a four-time Olympian.

It has been an incredible year for me, ... When I got back, I had a meeting and told my team, 'If you can be as disciplined and focused as our troops over there, we could be a potential national champion.'

The nominees for the Olympic team are Emily Hughes ...