The British Olympic Association (BOA) has announced today seven athletes as officially selected to represent Team GB in fencing at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
In the last three years British Fencing have won 13 World Cup medals and claimed four European Championship podium places, including Britain’s first major championships team medal in three decades.
Team GB will compete in all three fencing disciplines – epee, foil and sabre - on the Olympic programme, at the ExCel in London Docklands.
The selected athletes are:
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Entering his third Olympic Games, 28-year-old Richard Kruse has been in good form since the last Olympics in Beijing, winning a World Cup gold medal in 2009 as well as a silver medal at the European Fencing Championships in the same year. In 2011 he won silver at the World Cup in Seoul.
Joining Kruse in the Men’s Foil event will be James Davis, who at age 20 is the only British fencer ever to medal at the Cadet European Championships.
In the women’s foil event Olympic debutant Natalia Sheppard has been selected to represent Team GB in London.
Eleven-time British Championship medalist and double Commonwealth Junior Champion Corinna Lawrence is the only athlete selected for the epee event, with Louise Bond-Williams, who represented Great Britain at the Athens 2004 Olympics, Sophie Williams and James Honeybone selected for the sabre.
The Team GB fencing squad will consist of ten athletes in total, the Olympic selection for this sport is a two-stage process and three additional athletes to take part in the foil team events will be confirmed at a later date.
The addition of the fencing athletes brings the total number of athletes officially selected to Team GB for London 2012 to 128 across thirteen sport disciplines: archery, athletics – marathon, badminton boxing, canoe slalom, fencing, hockey, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronised swimming and table tennis.
The athletes were formally nominated to the BOA for selection to Team GB by British Fencing, the National Governing Body for fencing in the UK. Richard Kruse qualified through his world ranking and Natalia Sheppard through the European Zonal event. The other fencers selected today are utilising host nation places.
Team GB Chef de Mission Andy Hunt said:
British Fencing Performance Manager Alex Newton said:
Richard Kruse said:
James Honeybone said:
Natalia Sheppard said: