Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine fencing icon Kharlan hopes fighting spirit delivers Olympic gold

Twice, the 33-year-old quadruple world champion, who has two individual Olympic bronze medals, as well as a 2008 team sabre gold, came close to missing out on the Games.

The Italy-based Kharlan thought of quitting the sport in December, 2022, when her fortunes were at a low ebb as she feared for the safety of her family back in Ukraine following the Russian invasion that year.

A bronze medal at the Grand Prix in Tunis in early 2023 persuaded her to carry on.

"I thought, 'OK, I can do it, I will fight'. And of course a lot of support came from Ukraine," she told AFP at the European championships in June.

"You can't imagine how much they follow us, those soldiers who defend us in the front line."

In a potential body blow to her Olympic dreams, she was then disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, costing her invaluable qualifying points for the Games.

However, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, himself an Olympic winning fencer, came to the rescue offering her "his full support" and an automatic place in Paris because of her "unique situation".

"In the end of the story, it's not that bad," said Kharlan who will go for gold on Monday in the individual sabre event.

"But this was one of the worst days of my life. I was desperate, I had the worst cry in my life, for a couple of hours," she recalled.

"I was sitting on the ground in the Ukrainian box. I felt powerless, with both anger and sorrow at the same time.

"I felt empty because I fought to suspend Russians. I thought it was my fate not to go to the Olympics."

Kharlan said there is an extra motivation to her Olympic campaign.

"When the competitions come, you want so hard to prove something, you want to win for your country, for your parents," she told AFP in June.

- 'Like a lottery' -

"Because sport gives hope and good emotions."

Kharlan, who has lost teammates who went to fight in the war, will be thinking of her family back home in the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv when she competes on Monday for individual sabre gold.

"At the beginning of the war, I went to Ukraine to take my sister and my nephew and bring them to Italy," said Kharlan, who lives with her Italian fencing boyfriend Luigi Samele in Bologna.

"My mum decided to stay with my pop because he was 59 years old and men under 60 could not leave.

"Nobody knew how it was going to be, because Mykolaiv is next to Kherson which was under occupation.

"We had to leave in a day, the decision was very fast and my mum decided to not go. This is our Ukrainian soul and spirit."

She added: "Every day there are about five air sirens in Mykolaiv... but my mom is very tough."

Kharlan does manage to return to Ukraine for a week "every four months or so" but often the fear for her family's welfare is unbearable.

"Sometimes, during the day I just don't look at my phone," said Kharlan whose sister and nephew returned from Italy to live in Kyiv.

"There was a competition when I saw something happened in Kyiv. Ten minutes later I had to go on the strip to fence.

"I called my family and nobody replied. This is the worst. I started to panic because you never know, it's like a lottery. Unfortunately we get used to it."

X.Habash--SF-PST