The leader of Ukraine’s national fencing team, Olga Kharlan, has been disqualified from participating in the World Championships after she refused to shake hands with Anna Smirnova, who is from Russia.
As far as I’m aware, Russians are only allowed to compete if they are unaffiliated with the military. In a twist, the Russian competitor was also post-emptively disqualified from the competition because a picture of her supporting the Russian military was discovered (which is against the conditions for Russians to fence). If that picture has been uncovered before hand the Ukrainian would never had to fence her and wouldn’t have been black carded.
Also, she did offer to tap blades, which was the defacto solution during COVID, so it wasn’t a complete snub.
I find the politics of this situation very fascinating.
As far as I’m aware, Russians are only allowed to compete if they are unaffiliated with the military. In a twist, the Russian competitor was also post-emptively disqualified from the competition because a picture of her supporting the Russian military was discovered (which is against the conditions for Russians to fence). If that picture has been uncovered before hand the Ukrainian would never had to fence her and wouldn’t have been black carded.
Also, she did offer to tap blades, which was the defacto solution during COVID, so it wasn’t a complete snub.
I find the politics of this situation very fascinating.