O'Connell has unfinished business at World Student Games

BEIJING Olympian Alex O'Connell may be all set to leave his student days behind him, but he has one piece of unfinished business to attend to next month.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Alex O'Connell out to end his student days on a high in Belgrade

The 21-year-old fencer has just graduated from Cambridge University with a Classics degree and will make his second appearance at the World University Games in Belgrade in July.

Sabre specialist O'Connell was due to be Great Britain's sole fencing representative at the Beijing Olympics before late withdrawals handed both Richard Kruse and Martina Emanuel late call-ups.

O'Connell is no stranger to the World University Games, having carried the flag for Great Britain two years ago in Bangkok, but a disappointing outing in Thailand still does not sit well with the Brit.

The quality of the field across the board of the biennial competition cannot be questioned, but perhaps in a traditionally elitist sport like fencing, the competition is fiercer than most.

And according to O'Connell the World Student Games is no different to the Olympic stage.

"I had a fantastic experience two years ago in terms of going abroad and representing my country," said O'Connell. "But I felt my performances were not really up to scratch.

"Now that I've been before though, and obviously been to the Olympic Games, I considered myself much more ready, physically, as much as mentally.

"But we'll have to see what happens when I get there. The competition is going to be extremely high.  I remember the guy who won last time did extremely well at the Olympics.

"I haven't had ideal preparation because of my finals. I've had to concentrate on them and to some extent I think my fencing has suffered.

"But now I've got that out of the way I can't wait to get back to competition. I had a couple of good results in January but haven't really properly competed since then."

Back in January, O'Connell saw British Fencing feel the force of the UK Sport funding cuts, as the sport was handed just £1.26m in the run-up to London 2012, a 59 per cent decrease on the Beijing coffers.

But O'Connell has witnessed fencing go from strength to strength in the UK since then, as Kruse has broken into the top ten foilists in the world, while GB juniors swept the board at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival, capturing eight medals, including four golds.

And having been forced to bury his heads in the books in recent months, O'Connell revealed he is chomping at the bit to make his contribution, starting in Belgrade.

"Obviously the funding cuts were tough to take but we have to be grateful for anything we get in this economic climate," he added.

"And at the moment, British Fencing is thriving. We're taking quite an inexperienced squad to Belgrade but the future is extremely bright.

"I'm hoping to fare a lot better than I did last time out and there's a lot more responsibility for me but I'm relishing it."