The suspension of Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan, disqualified from the Fencing Worlds for not shaking hands with her Russian opponent, has been lifted, the International Fencing Federation (FIE) announced on Friday, allowing her to compete the team event from Saturday.
The FIE has also amended its rules which no longer oblige you to exchange a handshake with your opponent, indicated Bruno Gares, member of the FIE Executive Committee, during a press conference.
The suspension of the quadruple world champion and best Ukrainian for the entire competition frankly affected her country’s chances in the team event of the Worlds, where points count double in the race for Olympic qualification.
The interim president of the FIE, Emmanuel Katsiadakis, quoted in a press release, explains that the lifting of the suspension was decided “after consultation with the International Olympic Committee”.
For her individual case, the “unique exception” made by the IOC and announced by its president Thomas Bach in person in a letter, already assured a place for the 2024 Olympics for the Ukrainian. Sign that his disqualification surprised to the top of the Olympic movement, chaired by the former swordsman.
In the wake of the decision to disqualify Olga Kharlan, the IOC had also called for “sensitivity” with regard to Ukrainian athletes, saying that it was “well aware of the internal tensions to which athletes can be prey because of the aggression to which their country is subjected”.
A reaction that angered the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, judging that the Olympic movement appears to be “acting in the interests” of Ukraine.
The FIE, by modifying its rules, is adapting to a situation that it had not anticipated. The day before, the match between swordswomen Olga Kharlan and Russia’s Anna Smirnova, competing under “neutral individual athlete” status, was the first between a representative of Ukraine and a Russian in the sports world since the invasion. of the country by its neighbor in February 2022.
An event made possible by a reversal of the Ukrainian government which has only authorized since Wednesday the athletes of an official Ukrainian delegation to line up in competitions involving Russians or Belarusians, provided that they are registered under a neutral banner.
Rather than shaking hands with her opponent after having dominated her in the great widths (15-7), Olga Kharlan had presented her saber so that the blades clash, a gesture that was common in the weapons rooms at most due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However “the two fencers […] must shake hands with the opponent as soon as the decision is given”, specified before Friday the rules of the International Fencing Federation (FIE), chaired until the outbreak of the conflict by the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, in withdrawal since.