Ukraine’s government has called on the International Fencing Federation (FIE) to reverse its decision to disqualify a Ukrainian fencer for refusing to shake hands with her defeated Russian opponent.
The country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called for Olha Kharlan to be reinstated in the fencing world championships in Milan, after she was excluded as a result of the aftermath of her victory over Anna Smirnova, a Russian competing as a neutral.
“Olha Kharlan won the fair competition and showed dignity,” Kuleba said on social media. “I urge [FIE] to restore Kharlan’s rights and allow her to compete.”
Mihailo Podolyak, an aide to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked: “Doesn’t Russian money smell of blood?”
After her defeat by Kharlan in the women’s sabre competition, Smirnova approached the Ukrainian to shake hands, but Kharlan, an Olympic champion, held up her sabre instead and walked away. Smirnova refused to move for about 50 minutes and sat on a chair on the fencing piste.
Her protest further angered Ukrainians, who saw it as a deliberate attempt to highlight the absence of a handshake so as to get Kharlan disqualified.
“Anna Smirnova lost the fair competition and decided to play dirty with the handshake show. This is exactly how [the] Russian army acts on the battlefield,” Kuleba said.
Ukrainian officials posted what appeared to be screenshots of Smirnova’s social media posts in which she was posing with Russian military personnel in uniform, including her brother – a sign of her backing for the invasion, they argued, despite her competing as a neutral in Milan. Russians and Belarusians have been banned from taking part under their flags.
“As you can see, she openly admires the Russian army, which is killing Ukrainians and destroying our cities,” Podolyak said.
Elina Svitolina, the Ukrainian tennis player, called on the FIE to follow the lead of the Women’s Tennis Federation, which has supported her decision not to shake hands with Russians or Belarusians after matches.
“I think this is the right move forward,” she said in a discussion organised by the Atlantic Council in Washington on Thursday. “So I think the other sports federations should do the same. They should respect our decision, and the decision of our country as well.”
Svitolina described Smirnova’s behaviour as provocative and the FIE’s disqualification as “disrespectful” towards Ukrainians.
Svitolina welcomed the decision made by Ukraine’s sports ministry on Wednesday to allow Ukrainian athletes to compete against Russians or Belarusians participating as neutrals in international sporting events, potentially including next year’s summer Olympics in Paris.
Zelenskiy had said in January that “any neutral flag of Russian athletes is stained with blood” and that Russia would exploit Ukrainian athletes’ presence for propaganda. The new policy drops the boycott of Russians and Belarusians as long as they are not participating under their national flags or have signalled allegiance in other ways.
