Kruse is King of Cairo

Following up on his fantastic result at the Shanghai Grand Prix earlier in the year, Richard Kruse has now won the World Cup in Cairo.

With Maestro Ziemek at his side throughout, Richard beat the best fencers from across the globe to cement his position as the best foilist Britain has ever produced and among the very best fencers competing in the world at the moment.

Going into the competition ranked #6 in the World, Richard entered the competition in Tableau of 64, where he met fellow Brit, Keith Cook. In what turned out to be Richard's tightest match of the day, he prevailed with a close 15-12 score-line.

In the last 32, Kruse cruised past German Andre Sanita 15-7 and then past Alexey Cheremisinov of Russia 15-9 in the last 16.

Into the quarter finals, and Richard faced long time adversary and friend, Andrea Cassara of Italy. Over the years, honours have been evenly shared between these two, but in recent head-to-heads Richard has come out on top. So it was again in Cairo, with a well executed 15-10 victory.

Richard then met the Chinese, Ka Long Cheung, who had just got past World #1 Alex Massialas to secure his place in the semi-final. In what was a commanding performance from Richard, it was apparent early on that there would only be one winner: Richard came through with a 15-6 win.

The final saw Richard face-to-face with in-form Alessio Foconi of Italy who is ranked World #4. In what surely must be one of the widest winning margins in a final of a major tournament, Richard devastated the Italian to seal a convincing victory 15-5 and the gold medal.