(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



World sports and "neutral" athletes from Russia [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-27

After Russian athletes were excluded from most worldwide sports events in the light of Russia’s 2022 invasion, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been more and more pushing its member federations to invite Russian athletes again (the IOC is led by the controversial former fencer Thomas Bach, honored by Vladimir Putin with the Order of Honour). The International Fencing Federation was one of the first organizations whre Russian athletes could compete again, which caused the German Fencing Federation to cancel a World cup event in March 2023.

At the moment, the World Fencing Championships is taking place in Italy. After the Olympic Games, it is the most important competition of the sport, organized by the International Fencing Federation. One of the favorites in the Women’s saber discipline was the Olympic and six-times world champion Olha Kharlan, a national hero and outspoken critic of Russia. To no surprise, she clearly defeated her Russian opponent in the first round.

But the Russian obviously had her own agenda. After her loss, Smirnova tried to enforce a handshake on her opponent, which instead offered her sabre to tap blades. Smirnova not only ignored this offer, but subsequently blockaded the piste for half an hour causing the following duels to be postponed — knowing that the official rules demand a disqualification of a fencer who refuses a handshake. And this is indeed what happened: Ukrainian athlete Olha Kharlan got disqualified from the World Championships after defeating a minor athlete representing a country which currently kills and tortures her compatriots, deports children and terrorizes Ukrainians by all possible means.

Would the International Fencing Federation have invited German athletes during World War II, and would they have disqualified a Jewish athlete after refusing to shake hands with a Nazi?

Video of the event:

x 🇺🇦 Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan refused to shake hands with her russian rival Anna Smirnova.



👏 Harlan defeated Smirnova at the World Championships with a score of 15:7. After the match, the Ukrainian did not shake hands with her opponent.



The Committee of Youth and Sports pic.twitter.com/aLPKyrgeeF — Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - Ukrainian Parliament (@ua_parliament) July 27, 2023

Excerpts from the Russian’s instagram account:

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/27/2183665/-World-sports-and-neutral-athletes-from-Russia

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.