OLYMPICS LONDON 2012: Loss to top seeds impresses Kruse

By Sportsbeat staff, London 2012

RICHARD Kruse believes Britain’s men’s foil team performance against Italy at London 2012 shows they can compete with the world’s best.

UPBEAT: Richard Kruse was happy with the team's performance at London 2012 despite losing to top seeds Italy

Team GB were beaten 45-40 by the top seeds in the quarter-finals after earlier beating Egypt 45-33, before a 45-35 defeat to Russia eventually left Kruse’s team in sixth place.

But Kruse, who helped beat France 45-29 to set-up the elimination clash with Russia, believes the team fought hard, while paying tribute to youngster James Davis.

“In the team we showed we’ve got a world-class level of fencing,” said Kruse. “Actually it looks like just five hits against Italy, but we still we need to get that bit better and it takes a lot of work.

“We were in great shape and we fought as hard as we could and we were almost near to a dream come true against Italy, but they’re definitely stronger than us.

“We’ve given everything but unfortunately it was not quite good enough against Russia. We always find the Russian style quite difficult whereas we always find it much easier to fence against the French.

“The most positive news we take home from these Olympics is James Davis – he’s 21 and absolutely fearless.”

Davis believes that Great Britain can be proud of their efforts at London 2012 and hopes the Games can act as a springboard for the future.

He said: “We can hold our heads up high. We’ve fenced well and we put in a lot against Italy. Our fitness is good enough and had no bearing on our performance against Russia.

“I want to get into the top 16. It might take a little while. There’s a lot of potential in this team and we want to qualify for every championship.

“They were really amazing. They were the fifth man in our team and were truly inspirational and our clapping was for them.”

© Sportsbeat 2012