Just 41 days before the start of the London Olympics Britain's top fencer Richard Kruse took the bronze medal at the European Championships in Italy.
After a tough start to the day, winning only two of his five first-round matches, Kruse beat Frenchman Brice Guyart, Austrian Roland Schlosser, Ukraine's Rostyslav Hertsyk and Russian Renal Ganeev.
The Londoner was 10-5 up in his semi-final against Russian's world number eight Alexey Cheremisinov, but lost 15-11.
"It feels good - I wanted to be on the podium," said the 28-year-old. "I wanted to have a complete burn-out before the Olympics and wanted to push myself to the absolute limit.
"I did just that. I'll settle for bronze now and we'll work on fitness when we get back."