His forefathers may have wielded claymores, but Richard Kruse hopes to make a point for himself at the Beijing Olympics.

Brought up in London but qualifying as a Scot on his grandmother’s side, the 25 year-old is tipping as an outside bet for a medal in the men’s foil.

Yet Kruse, who reached the quarter-finals in Athens four years ago, thought he had missed out on his Olympic dream when he failed to secure his place in the Great Britain team at the qualifying event.

It was only a late intervention by the international federation which gave him a place – one of only three British fencers who will be competing in Beijing.

“It was disappointing,” he recalls, “As I lost out by just one hit to an Austrian fencer. I thought I’d blown my chances. I knew there was maybe a one or two per cent chance I could still get in if someone was injured but it was a long shot.

“I was over the moon when I was eventually given the place. It was one of the ones allocated to Chinese fencers as they are the host nation but their fencers qualified anyway so it left some places open as they did not fulfil their quota.

”Now, I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll face a Romanian or an Austrian in the first match and I know it will be tough but it’s a winnable match.

“If I can get through that, then it’s likely to be a German or an Italian who are ranked one or two in the world, but I’ve beaten these guys before and I know that anything is possible at an Olympic Games.

“That is what I learned in Athens. Some of the fencers can crumble mentally when it’s all on one day and I just have to get in the right frame of mind.

“If everything goes my way, then I’d say I have an outside chance of a medal.”

Kruse has already beaten the reigning Olympic champion – Frenchman Brice Guyart – on his way to a silver medal at the European Championships two years ago in Turkey, so he knows that anything is possible in a one-off contest.

Currently ranked 23rd in the world, he is seeded 16th for the Olympics and has been working hard in recent weeks – with Russian fencers at a training camp in Northumbria and now at the GB holding camp in Macau before he competes on August 13.

Fencing from the age of 10, he has fought all over the world and has done well on previous trips to China.

“I’m lucky in that my employers are very good to me as fencing involves a lot of commitment and you can be away at competitions for a third of the year,” he continues.

“But having the Olympics in London in 2012 has helped, I’m sure, make employers sympathetic to the needs of athletes.

“All being well, I’d hope to compete in my third Olympics in London at the age of 29 and hopefully do well and then it would be time to hang up my spurs.”

Kruse has already flirted briefly with fame. He appeared on “Blue Peter” to talk about his sport and also appeared on a music video for short-lived boyband “V” on their song “You Stood Up”.

If he can medal in Beijing, then he will be toasted from glen to glen.

RM
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