RIO DE JANEIRO -- As Alexander Massialas stood on the podium in Carioca Arena 3, America's new silver medal-winning fencer looked to his mother, the silent force of his career, and the tears flowed.

The foil is etched in the Massialas family DNA. His sister, Sabrina, is a Youth Olympian and is targeting Tokyo 2020, and his father, Greg, is a two-time Olympian -- it would have been three but for the boycott of the 1980 Games -- and is the team's coach. But behind the trio is his mother, Chwan-Hui Chen, and as Alexander stood assessing his 15-11 final defeat to Italian Daniele Garozzo, the tears returned.

"I saw my mom out in the stands trying to hug me from so far away," Alexander said. "My mom has been the silent force behind everything I do. She hates being in the limelight but this is the one chance I have to thank her for everything she has ever done for me, driving me to practice every day, encouraging me every step of the way even when things got tough and giving me unconditional love over the 22 years I have been alive.

"She is the secret hero that no one really talks about and I couldn't be a prouder son to bring this back for her."

Though an element of disappointment at having fallen in the final was laid bare across his emotion-worn face, there was the dominant feeling of sheer pride. For the first time since Joseph Levis' feats in 1932, an individual male fencer has registered a silver medal and the message is clear from father and son: This is just the start for fencing in the U.S.

It was a turbulent, draining journey to the final for the 22-year-old. In the quarterfinal he was down 14-8 to Giorgio Avola only to hit seven consecutive points to progress, and then came the 15-13 semifinal win over the in-form Richard Kruse. Yet in the final, down 14-7 at the end of the first round it proved to be a deficit too large to claw back.

As Garozzo sprung off the piste having registered the gold-winning point, letting out guttural roars of celebration, Alexander slumped to the ground in desolation. It was the brutal, individualistic nature of fencing laid bare on the highest stage. But then his father walked over to him, whispered in his ear, "It's OK," and suddenly the magnitude of what he had achieved sunk in.

"Those two words don't sound like a lot but they meant the world to me, to know that he was proud, to know that he knows I left it all out on the strip," the younger Massialas said. "It meant the world to me. I don't know what I could ever do to repay my dad."

His journey to the silver medal started when he was seven and after a 13th-place finish in London 2012, he came into the Olympics as the men's No. 1-ranked individual foil in the world.

Alex Massialas wins silver in Individual Foil Fencing! #BackThePac pic.twitter.com/KN3UlKZLwf - Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) August 7, 2016

Though the gold escaped him Sunday, he has another shot at winning the top accolade. Up next for Massialas is the team event Friday, where he is looking to go one better, and then it is back to the United States where he has a year left in his mechanical engineering major at Stanford.

He'll then take some time to breathe, assess what he has achieved, complete his final year and then refocus. The chances are he'll be back in Tokyo looking to be the man on top of the podium hoping to continue inspiring future generations.

"I know I made a lot of young fencers proud and I hope I have given a lot of young fencers an inspiration and a chance to dream big," Massialas said. "A lot of people for the longest time didn't believe U.S. men's foil could bring back a medal from the Olympics and to show them 'yes we can' and to show that if you put in hard work and always believe you can do it, hopefully I am able to inspire tons of kids to start fencing or dream big in whatever they want to do.

"As my dad likes to say, men's foil is probably in its golden age now in the U.S. It shows that we belong and are only getting stronger and hopefully that means in the team event in five days we can come back and win gold and get some redemption."