@pacoMarqz @TCU_Athletics@TCUFootball@Big12Conference And OU and Kansas and OSU and Kansas State and West Virginia and Tech and Baylor and Iowa State. No, I think what they wrote it much shorter.
Ukrainian fencer, six-time world champion and eight-time European champion Olga Kharlan, defeated Russia's Olga Smirnova in the World Championships in Milan.
Harlan defeated Russia's Anna Smirnova 15:7. According to the regulations, at the end of the fight, athletes should shake hands. Ukrainian athlete refused to shake hands.
According to the rules of fencing, the fight is not considered finished until the handshake. There was no handshake, because instead of her hand, Olga Kharlan extended a rapier to her opponent: so that not to insult with your handshake the memory and honor of those who defend Ukraine from brutal aggression (this practice is also used at times during competitions).
Olga was disqualified.
In this video, Olga thanks everyone who supported her.
Olga's gesture was, in fact, symbolic of a new world order against the old rules that have lost all meaning.
The Russian athlete was also a symbol of the current Russia:
1. She performed under a "neutral" flag, but she herself is not "neutral" (her brother Nikita's Instagram has a photo of them together, where the athlete poses with the symbol of terrorism "V" and in a typical Russian military cap. Her brother himself is wearing the military uniform of the Russian army).
2. False victory. The disqualification of the real winner is not a victory, but an information war and a demonstration of the scale of the efforts, money and resources "Russian world" continues to invest in it with redoubled force.
3. By the way, the fencing association was chaired from 2008 to 2022 by Alisher Usmanov (Russian money, Russian lobby).
Disqualification for the Ukrainian champion is a huge sacrifice. But her own human disqualification would have been much more terrible.
Olga became another symbol of freedom and dignity of her country in the eyes of the world. This is a much more substantial victory.
The rule of the extended rapier is about not resorting to false handshakes, not maintaining discredited relationships, consciously or by inertia, but to extend the rapier at the slightest approach of the "Russian world."
If we pretend that the world has not changed and nothing is happening, evil will not be defeated!