PARIS — Maia Weintraub’s parents spent Thursday morning strolling through the neighborhoods and streets around the Grand Palais, stopping once for cappuccino, curious what their daughter’s role for the United States’ women’s foil team would be.

Jason Weintraub and Elizabeth Surin knew Maia, a 2021 Friends Select alumna and an NCAA individual foil champion at Princeton University, would not compete for the U.S. in the morning quarterfinal round against China. Her three teammates — Lee Kiefer, Lauren Scruggs and Jacqueline Dubrovich — would, which made it possible that Maia would not compete at all.

The substitution rules for women’s team foil are not as liberal in the Olympics as they are in other world fencing events. In those, a coach can insert and remove fencers multiple times. In the Olympics, where each team match comprises nine individual bouts, once a coach replaces one fencer with another, that’s it: The new fencer has to stay in. So if the U.S. advanced to the gold-medal round with Kiefer, Scruggs and Dubrovich — and the U.S. definitely was a contender for gold on Thursday — why would coach Ralf Bissdorf replace one of them with Maia?

And advance, the U.S. did, through China, 45-37, in the quarters and through Canada, 45-31, in the semifinals. Maia didn’t fence a single bout. But once it was official that the U.S. would face Italy in the finals, the dynamic changed. Maia had performed well throughout her international career against the Italians. In May, in the semifinals of the World Cup in Hong Kong, she had rallied from a seven-point deficit to beat Arianna Errigo, a two-time world champion and Italy’s top foil fencer.

If the U.S. needed a jolt or was trailing in the finals, it would make strategic sense for Bissdorf to put Maia in. Elizabeth, in particular, believed there was a good chance her daughter would get her shot. “I am 99% sure,” she said in a text Thursday afternoon.

‘Release the Kraken’

Kiefer and Scruggs won their first bouts, getting the U.S. out to a 10-5 lead. But Dubrovich lost to Alice Volpi, 7-5, and with the U.S. leading, 19-15, after five bouts and Errigo up next for Italy, Bissdorf went to Maia, who went in cold, lost three quick points, and committed a foul that earned her a yellow card — a warning that, if she was penalized again, she would cost her team a point.

But her strength as a fencer, her coaches and family members have said, is her unflappability, especially when she is trailing, even by a wide margin.

“She is a money player,” Mark Masters, her coach at the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia, said. “She fences better under the pressure of the battle.”

Italy within one, Errigo having the better of the battle, the Grand Palais throbbing with spectators’ shouts and chants — the pressure could not have been higher.

Then …

“The appropriate coach’s command,” Jason, Maia’s father, said late Thursday night, “is ‘Release the Kraken.’ ”

Touch. Point, U.S.

Touch. Point, U.S.

Touch. Point, U.S.

Maia reeled off six of the next seven points, beating Errigo, 6-4. She sat out the next match, then handled Francesca Palumbo, 5-1. The United States won, 45-39, for the first Olympic team gold medal in its history. By winning her two bouts by an aggregate six points, Maia had represented the difference between victory and defeat.

A moment for mother and daughter

In June, at a café near Washington Square Park, Elizabeth had spoken in depth about Maia’s rise through fencing and the degree to which she had pushed her. There had been moments, even stretches, of tension and stress. For four years, while Maia, now 21, was a teenager, Elizabeth didn’t attend any of her matches.

Elizabeth had described herself as a “Tiger Mom,” a term that can carry some negative connotations, and it wasn’t until she read some of Maia’s insights and comments about their relationship that she understood how it had evolved … for the better.

“I’m older,” said Maia, who is also the first Olympic gold medalist in fencing at Princeton. “This is kind of like my job. She doesn’t have to have full control anymore. She doesn’t have to guide me. She can put in more faith and trust that I know what I’m doing, and she can enjoy it more.”

Once the championship match ended, Maia and her teammates celebrated, draping American flags over themselves, and before officials whisked her away for her post-match obligations — interviews, drug tests, convening with coaches — she headed over to the balcony where Jason and Elizabeth were sitting. Elizabeth reached down, “just like some other parent doing it at Wimbledon,” and hugged her daughter.

“All the effort, everything, has paid off,” Elizabeth said. “She delivered. There’s no other word for it. She delivered. I feel so proud of her and for her. I have no words.”

What parent would?