After she was disqualified from the world championships for not shaking Russian rival’s hand, her plight has become a touchstone for a war-torn nation
Olha Kharlan remembers taking her kit, sitting quietly in a side room and contemplating a future without the sport she loves. It all seemed so nonsensical. She had been disqualified from the fencing world championships in Milan for not shaking hands with her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, and the price for exercising a point of principle had soared beyond all expectation.
“I thought that was it, this was how my career would end,” she says. “I accepted it, I believed it was over. I had to think the worst. Right there, I felt in the worst condition of all my life.”
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