The International Fencing Federation (FIE) also said it was reinstating Kharlan, allowing her to take part in the team competition at the world championships in Milan.
Emmanuel Katsiadakis, the Greek president of the FIE, said the decision had been taken “after consultation with the International Olympic Committee”.
Kharlan, the first fencer to face a Russian or Belarusian since the former’s invasion of Ukraine, won 15-7 against Russia’s Anna Smirnova on Thursday.
The 32-year-old four-time Olympic medallist refused Smirnova’s handshake afterwards, instead offering her sabre to tap blades, but FIE rules state that the two fencers must shake hands.
Smirnova staged a 45-minute protest and refused to leave the competition strip.
Kharlan was disqualified, claiming afterwards that Emmanuel Katsiadakis, the Greek president of the FIE, had even assured her that it was “possible” not to shake hands and offer a touch of her blade instead following her victory.
“I thought I had his word, to be safe, but apparently, no,” Kharlan said.
In response to her disqualification, the International Olympic Committee called for Ukrainian athletes to be treated “sensitively”.
Then on Friday, IOC President Thomas Bach, a former Olympic fencer himself, sent Kharlan a letter saying she would be guaranteed a place at next year’s Olympics in Paris regardless of whether she gained the qualification points.
Why wouldn’t she shake hands? Just bigotry?
Oh I dunno, let’s have your country invaded, your children slaughtered in their schools, your women and children raped, your prisoners of war tortured and executed, your monuments and cultural touchstones destroyed, your homes and apartments bombed indiscriminately until several of your cities are completely flattened.
Then let’s have you compete with a person who is representing the invaders. Wearing their flag, singing their anthem. And then you’re expected to shake their hand?
We’ll see if you can’t sympathize then.
The US, the UK, most of western Europe have done far worse to countries across the globe and presumably they have their hands shaken all the time at these events. This girl is not responsible for America’s latest war.
Maybe if they get their hands shaken all the time at these events, it means they haven’t done “far worse”…
How many innocent people do you think the US has killed in the past 20 years? Just take a guess, in millions, obviously.
This attitude to a greater extent is what lead to Japanese American children being thrown in concentration camps.
This is a shaken hand when someone is representing a country, not a child trying to live their life free. You’ve built a wonderful strawman.
Do you think athletes literally represent their countries as avatars or something? Representing your country in an athletic competition does not mean agreeing with everything your country does, or even with most things your country does. Look at all the US black athletes in the 1936 Olympics.
In the Olympics, do we not say what “country” won the medals, fly their flag, play their anthem? It’s not my narrative, but the one the Olympics has written.
Okay and if someone shot her at the competition would they be shooting her, or Russia? Her, obviously. Yours is a silly line of argumentation steeped in national symbolism.
You’re attacking me instead of my point. Until you address it I have nothing more to say.
