Richard Kruse shines with silver at World Champs

Football had been waiting 52 years to bring the World Cup home. It's still waiting.

British Fencing had been waiting even longer to bring home a World Cup medal. It has to wait no longer.

After yet another world-class performance from Richard Kruse, the British No. 1 won Silver at fencing’s World Championships in Wuxi, China, today. Having lead through the early part of the final, Richard eventually lost to Italy’s current World No. 2, Alessio Foconi, 15-8.

It was Britain’s first World Championship medal since Bill Hoskyns won silver in men’s epee in 1965. Indeed, this was the first medal for Great Britain in any event at the senior fencing world championships in all that time.

Richard obviously enjoys competing in China. Earlier this year the World No 4 retained his crown at the Shanghai Grand Prix.

It was a fantastic day for the ZFW family, as James-Andrew Davis made the quarter finals, where he narrowly succumbed to Richard, 15-12. On the way, James beat, among others, World No 6 Andrea Cassarà, 15-10 in the last 32.

Other great results from Ziemek's fencers include Alex Tofalides finishing 27th, Alex Choupenitch 28th and Chris Nagle 76th.

Congratulations all of you. ZFW is incredibly proud.

Slideshow images below of Ziemek, Richard, James, Tofi and Alex from the ever-wonderful Augusto Bizzi / FIE.

The full list of results can be found here. From this link, you can also see the poule and DE tables.

Images courtesy of Olympic Channel and FIE/Bizzi.