Olympic Bronze medal for Leon Paul sponsored Pentathlete click here for more details.
Athens Olympic Update
Leon Paul sponsored, Richard Kruse fenced fantastically in today’s Olympic Men’s foil finals to reach the last 8. This is the best result that Britain has had in Men’s foil since Bill Hoskyns 40 years ago.
In his first fight Richard got off to a nervous start against Haibin Wang of China. After regaining his composure he repeatedly caught him under the arm on the counterattack before building the pressure to such a level that he forced two points by running him off the end of the piste. After the break Richard went on to finish the match relatively comfortably 15 - 11. His fight in the last 16 was against Dan Kellner of the USA this was a difficult fight for Richard and after being 11 -14 down he came back superbly to win the match and make it to the last 8. In his final match against Andre Casarra (the number one seed) of Italy Richard put up a valiant fight but eventually lost 8 – 15.
This is an absolutely outstanding achievement for Richard, his coach Ziemek Wojciechowski and all of the support team. All of the athletes in the last 8 and most of those in the last 32 / 64 are full time professionals with a full time support team and dedicated training centres. By contrast Richard has recently completed a degree and fences in his own time; to have got so far is one of the greatest achievements in British Fencing for decades.
In the last 32 Louise Bond-Williams won the first hit and never slipped behind running out the deserved winner 15 13.
In the last 16 Louise came up against the number 3 seed, starting strongly she built up a 7 3 lead. A change of tactics by Netchaeva brought the score to 8 7. After the one minute rest period Louis exchanged hits up to 12 all but unable to prevent Netchaeva running out the 15 12 winner.
See the score card here.
Click here to see pictures of Richard and Lousie here.
TEAM
GB AT THE ATHENS OLYMPIC GAMES
(from the British
fencing website)
The British Olympic Association (BOA) today announced
the selection of the following fencing athletes
to compete for Team GB in this summer's Athens
Olympic Games, which begin on August 13.
Men:
Richard Kruse (LP
sponsored fencers Foil)
Women:
Louise Bond-Williams
(LP sponsored Sabre)
Simon Clegg, the Chief Executive of the BOA and
the Chef de Mission for Team GB at the Athens
Olympic Games, said: "I am delighted to welcome
these fencing athletes into Team GB for the Athens
Olympic Games following their fine performances
at the European Olympic Qualifying Event in Ghent,
Belgium at the weekend. Richard's Gold and Louise's
Silver medal ensure that we have some exciting
prospects to watch out for in Athens."
Graham Watts, Team Leader for the 2004 Olympic
Games Athens Fencingsquad added: "This is
a fantastic achievement for British Fencing and
for our two most talented fencers. Both Richard
and Louise have made the Top 8 in the world championships
within the last two years and they have the ability
and experience to perform well at the Olympic
Games. The qualification standards get tougher
every Olympiad and we only had one fencer in a
seeded position to qualify and so to achieve two
places, with the added bonus of topping the medal
table in Ghent is excellent." |
