Richard Kruse fell agonisingly short of winning Team GB’s first medal of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Britain’s first fencing medal for 52 years as he narrowly lost out in the battle for bronze in the men’s individual foil.
In a hard fought contest against Timur Safin of Russia, the 33-year-old demonstrated phenomenal balance, poise and skill in a match up that saw him claw back a big early deficit.
The crowd roared him on as he looked like pulling off a famous win but a final bit of skill from his opponent saw Kruse come up just short of victory as he went down valiantly with a 15-13 defeat.
The bitter blow came following his close semi-final loss to Alexander Massialas of the USA and Kruse admitted he was devastated to miss out on a spot on the podium.
“It was very close and I almost converted a medal for Britain which would have been the first fencing medal for nearly 60 years but I couldn’t quite finish it," he said.
“The pressure was that fact that fencing hasn’t won a medal for a long time so that was the expectation when I got out there but it wasn’t to be.
“I came back well and learned what to do against him but learnt what to do too late. I was fencing him at a large distance using a lot of force but when I started thinking about what I was doing it started to work well but by then it was gone by then.
“I’m very proud for getting to the top four and I’ve been some good opponents along the way.”
Earlier in the day, James Davis went out in the last 16 as he was also defeated by Safin by an identical score of 15-13.
“I took a great lead and then just got lazy,” said Davis. “I kept doing the same action and let him back in it.
“I got too tense and then once the score got closer, I just didn’t change quickly enough. I fenced like an idiot towards the end to be honest.
“I’d beaten him this season and I’m experienced enough that I should be seeing out games. I should have pulled away and finished it but instead I let him get back in it.”
Team GB’s other fencer Laurence Halstead fell in the last 32 to Chen Haiwei of China by a score of 15-9 in a busy day for Britain.
“I really didn’t start well in terms of points but actually I didn’t feel like I was out of the match as much as the score showed,” he said.
“It was a bit of a strange one. The finesse of it wasn’t coming at the start. I caught that in the middle and got quite a few hits in a row but then he stormed away again at the end.