05/05/2016- Latest News
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Fencing squad for Rio 2016 Olympic Games selected to Team GB

With the faces that will make up Team GB this summer being revealed thick and fast, today sees three more athletes join the ranks that will fly to Brazil for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.


James Davis, Laurence Halsted and Richard Kruse make up the squad and all three will compete in the individual and men’s team foil events – with Marcus Mepstead named as the team reserve.


All three of the team were present at London 2012, where Team GB finished sixth in the team event, with Rio 2016 set to be a fourth Olympic Games for 32-year-old Kruse.


Since London Team GB has enjoyed success at an international level with the men’s foil team – which included Kruse – taking the gold medal at the inaugural European Games in Baku in 2015 and the bronze medal at the 2013 European Championships in Zagreb.


The team sealed a quota spot for Rio 2016 back in February when a ninth-placed finish at the World Cup in Bonn ensured that Britain were the highest European world-ranked team outside the top four.


Team GB have a total of nine medals at Olympic level since the first Games in 1896, with the only gold medal coming for Gillian Sheen in the individual foil in Melbourne 1956 and the most recent coming in 1964 for Henry Hoskyns.


The selected fencers are:

James Davis (Men’s individual and team foil)

Laurence Halsted (Men’s individual and team foil)

Richard Kruse (Men’s individual and team foil)


Reserve:

Marcus Mepstead (Men’s team foil)


Mark England, Team GB’s Chef de Mission for Rio 2016, said:

“I’m delighted to be able to welcome four familiar faces back into the Team GB fold and I am excited to see what they can do in Rio de Janeiro.


“They have done brilliantly to ensure that Team GB have representation in fencing at the Games.


“They have won medals at European level and have Olympic Games experience and that pedigree will be hugely beneficial to members of Team GB from any sport.”


Laurence Halsted said:

“I was selected for London but this is different because we qualified by right this time and that feels significant because we did it ourselves.


“It feels like the culmination of a ten year project to find a team that is strong enough to compete at this level and in the last year we have come on so much. To get the reward for the work we have done over those years is great but there is more to do.


“This team has got two senior guys and two younger guys and we have been pushing along at this level for a long time and we have hit our stride and now we have a team of four world class fencers so we just need to tweak it to make sure it goes right on the day.”


James Davis said:

“It’s fantastic to be able to represent Team GB, we have worked so hard as a team to be here. We all get on well and we have put the work in and that has shown in qualification.


“To be there by right and to qualify a team is brilliant. We know we are all good individually but to qualify as a team is incredible. We have all come together and we have the experience to do well. We have beaten some of the top teams in the world so we know we can be there.


“Just by qualifying and beating the best teams we know that we have a chance at the Olympics. I’m not setting any goals or expectations. I know I am good enough so I am just focusing on that first touch.”

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