The war has torn apart old alliances and heightened the acrimony. A Ukrainian fencer is competing after her refusal to shake hands with a Russian rival got her barred from the world championships.
Olha Kharlan of Ukraine shouted in celebration under the vaulted glass dome of the Grand Palais on Monday, after an early round victory in her pursuit of a fifth career Olympic medal in saber fencing.
She had reached the semifinals by late afternoon. But just her mere presence confirmed that this niche sport, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the acrimony and caustic feuding that have resulted from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Kharlan, 33, was disqualified from the world fencing championships last summer for refusing to shake hands with her Russian opponent. But Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee and himself a 1976 Olympic fencing champion, gave Kharlan an exemption to participate in the Paris Games, citing her “unique situation.”
There she was on Monday, competing in the Olympics, while Russia was absent from the biggest international event in fencing, a sport in which it has long been a power athletically and administratively.
With Russia banned from these Games because of its invasion, only 15 of its athletes are competing in Paris, all designated as neutral, without the accompaniment of the country’s flag or national anthem. There are none in fencing, a huge blow to the country’s Olympic prestige given that Russia and the former Soviet Union rank behind only Italy, France and Hungary in fencing’s overall medal count.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
