At the World Fencing Championship, Ukrainian Olga Kharlan was disqualified after she refused to shake hands with a Russian athlete following her victory over her (VIDEO).

At the Fencing World Championship, Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan was disqualified for refusing to shake hands with Russian athlete Anna Smirnova after defeating her. The International Fencing Federation made the decision to disqualify her.

Earlier, the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine issued an order prohibiting Ukrainian athletes from competing alongside representatives of countries that are aggressive towards Ukraine, such as Russia and Belarus. As a result, at the World Fencing Championship in Milan, Italy, Ukrainian athletes were not allowed to participate in all categories. However, just before the start of the playoff round in the individual "women's saber" discipline, the Ministry of Youth and Sports changed the rule and allowed athletes to compete against Belarusians and Russians if they were competing under a neutral flag.

Thanks to this change, Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan was able to participate in the playoffs. She faced Russian athlete Anna Smirnova in the competition and defeated her with a score of 15:7. After the match, Smirnova expected Kharlan to shake her hand, but the Ukrainian athlete refused to do so. Instead, she extended her saber forward, seemingly offering her opponent a touch of the blades.

The Russian athlete insisted on shaking hands. The Russian sportswoman remained on the strp for a long time, demanding the disqualification of the Ukrainian for refusing to shake hands. This lasted for 52 minutes. Afterward, an official representative of the organizers approached the Russian athlete and explained something.

The Ukrainians counted it as a victory. In the next round, she was supposed to compete against the Bulgarian Joanna Ilieva. However, shortly after, the organizers published the tournament grid, where the Bulgarian representative was already listed for the next round. For her refusal to shake hands with the representative of the occupying country, Olga Kharlan was eventually disqualified from the World Championship.

Earlier, we reported that Mykhailo Kokhan from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast brought the second Olympic license to the region.