Fencer Olga Kharlan wins Ukraine's first Olympic 2024 medal
Fencer Olga Kharlan has won Ukraine's first medal at the Paris Olympics, taking bronze in the women's individual saber event on July 29.
The 33-year-old beat South Korea's Choi Se-bin 15-14 in a fiercely contested match.
Kharlan made her way to the Olympic semi-finals beating Japan's Shihomi Fukushima, Azerbaijan's Anna Bashta and Hungary's Anna Marton, before losing to France's Sarah Balzer.
The bronze makes her Ukraine's equal-most decorated Olympian in history by number of medals, and the first Ukrainian to win medals in four separate Games.
In an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne after the match, Kharlan said she wants to dedicate her win to Ukraine's defenders and the Ukrainian athletes who lost their lives fighting Russia's invasion.
"I don't know what I did," Kharlan said. "It just cannot be conveyed. I dedicate this to all of Ukraine, friends, this is to you. I dedicate this to our defenders. I dedicate this to those athletes who cannot come here because Russia killed them."
Kharlan made international headlines last year when she was disqualified from the FIE Fencing World Championships in Milan for refusing to shake hands with her defeated Russian opponent.
Kharlan won the match against Russian fencer Anna Smirnova, who was competing under a neutral flag. At the end, Kharlan refused to shake hands with her opponent, instead offering her sabre to tap blades.
Shaking an opponent's hand is mandatory in fencing, and failure to do so results in a “black card.”
"Today was a very difficult and very important day. What happened today raises a lot of questions," Kharlan said in a video posted on her Instagram page at the time.
"I did not want to shake hands with this athlete, and I acted with my heart. So when I heard that they wanted to disqualify me it killed me so much that I was screaming in pain," Kharlan said.
"I think I understand, like everyone else in this world, in a sane world, that the rules have to change because the world is changing."
Kateryna Hodunova
