Newzill BA - Courtney Hurley's Road to Tokyo Olympic Games

Courtney Hurley, one of Newzill's Brand Ambassadors, is 2018 World Championship bronze medalist and qualified for 2020 Tokyo Olympic game, her third Olympic games. 

In 2012 Olympic Women’s Epee Team, Courtney and her older sister Kelley Hurley together won bronze which is the first Olympic medal for Team USA in women’s epee. 

As the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games going on, here are some questions with Courtney Hurley:

1. What was it like to hear “Ready … Fence!” once again?

It felt so surreal. It didn’t feel like reality. You’re so used to doing competitions. You do a million a year, and so it was such a different life not doing it for so long and then coming back straight to it with basically no time to process, they were like, ‘Oh, World Cup is next month.’ It didn’t register really in time. I think that’s why we didn’t perform as well as we’d hoped. We weren’t mentally prepared.

2. Talk about women’s epee team going to Tokyo and what you think you can do there?

Before COVID, we were super confident, and I’m still super confident, but COVID threw in some uncertainties … Who knows what could happen. Our team is so close and it’s the first time probably ever that we’ve had such a close team and we all get along really well and we work really well together in this kind of environment. And switching it up, because I was always the last position, the anchor, and switching it up the last couple years to Kat Homes being the anchor, it’s definitely changed the whole dynamic and just working really well all together, definitely it’s much more enjoyable.

3. Your parents were in the stands in 2012. What did that mean to share that not only with Kelley, but with them?

Definitely one of the most enjoyable moments of my life and I’m sure all of our lives. Just to have our parents in the stands and winning that with Kelley – we’ve watched that last match so many times on YouTube and I know the exact moment I can hear my dad screaming at me, ‘Gotta take the blade.’ 

4. What’s it like having Kelley to go through all this with?

I don’t think either of us would’ve been able to continue this far without one another. It’s a lonely individual sport, it can be. you’re fighting against everybody to get the spot on the team … so I don’t think we could’ve done it without each other’s support, 100% in each other’s corner. Not many people have that kind of loyalty and support, so I think that’s a big reason we are successful as we are.

5. What do you want to do once your done fencing?

I want to retire. So actually, my mom and I are starting an app … it’s an events-based app. I don’t like to say it, but to give a good picture, it’s like Meetup … I’m hoping ours is a mixture of events and then has a social media aspect to it. There’s not really that many events apps out there. Facebook is really your big one. Actually, we started it because we were in Paris and we were trying to find things to do in Paris and Facebook was really the only way you could find events. So that’s something that started the whole process.

Source: USA Fencing