Ed Jefferies fighting hard on two fronts

Published on Monday 18 April 2011 16:26

For most Olympic hopefuls hardly a minute of the day goes by now when they are not training for or thinking about next year's Games in London - and then they go to bed and dream about it.

British fencer Ed Jefferies is a bit different, however. He has some other things on his mind a lot of the time. Some very big things. The 22-year-old Scot, part of the men's foil squad which has real medal hopes, is also in the first year of a part-time degree course in global politics and international relations at Birkbeck College in London.

When there are exams to be taken it does not matter where in the world he is. "I've got two coming up in May - one while I'm in Shanghai for a Grand Prix and the other on the day of (World Cup] competition in Korea," he said. "I've got to go to the British Council and pay for an invigilator."

All Jefferies can hope is that he does not go down with illness as he did hours before he was due to compete at the world championships in Paris in November.

"It was pretty devastating and pretty unlucky," he recalls. "But there was nothing I could have done about it - it was just one of those things. I just woke up in the middle of the night feeling really bad. I'd qualified through the preliminary rounds into the last 64 and it was the day of the competition.

"Game over - there was no way I could have fenced. I could barely stand up. It was the first time I've ever had to pull out of a competition. We thought it was food poisoning, but I was still sick four days later in the team event and the doctor thought it might have been a virus because it had gone on so long."

The world championships were forgettable all round really for the British team, top foilist Richard Kruse not even making the trip because of a fractured foot. With extra funding coming in though - Jefferies was speaking at a demonstration event organised by the sport's new sponsors Beazley - hopes are high that an Olympic medal drought stretching back to 1964 can be ended.

"We think we have a strong chance in the team event," he commented. "We've had some promising results, including bronze at the European championships last July, so we just need to carry on making small improvements. There's a confidence around that we can do it."

Britain are currently ranked ninth in the world, as is Kruse individually, while Laurence Halsted is currently 24th and Jefferies next best at 65th. "There are four or five who could make the team and everybody's very hungry for it, so I face lots of competition. The atmosphere is good. It's healthy competition and that pushes you along further and helps you improve. I'll only be 23 at the Games, so Rio is another possibility for me, but one step at a time - London first. It's been the target ever since it was announced."A family move from England to Inverness when he was ten led to Jefferies having the chance to try fencing a year later. "I think it was watching movies as a child, pirates and all the swash-buckling, that attracted me to it. It looked really elegant, really exciting. You need to be quick, strong, fit, calm under pressure and have good concentration, fast reactions, good mental skills and tactics. You also need to be dedicated and train hard - it's often described as physical chess. Right from a young age I was just hooked on competing, winning and trying to get better." The left-hander won silver at the world junior championships two years ago, the same season that Kruse and Halsted won silver and bronze at the European senior championships.

They have both been to two Olympics Games, 27-year-old Kruse competing in Athens and Beijing and 26-year-old Halsted going along as practice partner and observer, but Jefferies has an opportunity in August to get a taste of what it could be like next year.

"We have the world university games this August in China, which is a massive multi-sport event and the closest thing to the Olympics, so hopefully I'll be taking part in that."

And afterwards it will be back to the serious business of trying to qualify for London - and the equally serious business of global politics, of course.