Aladdin Sadiq would rub his wonderful lamp if he had one - but the head of Westminster's Fencing Academy is just too miserable to hope for a fairy tale.
Fencing funding got slashed and Sadiq reckons any chance of a medal in 2012 would probably depend on a genie coming out of the bottle with three wishes on offer.
He said: "We got an eighth place in Beijing on very little money relatively, and this setback will surely have an effect on fencers' enthusiasm.
"We weren't prepared for a cut. In fact, we thought it might be an increase.
"Last month, we took a Westminster team of 16 to France for a competition - and paid for it ourselves. Up against us was a 50-strong team from the USA - all expenses met and paid for.
"Had the next Olympics been anywhere else, it might not have been as bad, but here in London?"
ENGLAND international Jessica Lacheta is raising a petition to get more funding for her beloved fencing.
Lacheta, from Fulham, hopes by raising enough signatures to dump on the relative government desk, she can get them to change their minds over the amount she fears her sport will get towards 2012.
British fencing performance director Graham Watt added: "We're suffering from the government's perception that fencing, l i k e shooting, is a posh sport."
