Ukraine’s national saber team, including Olha Kharlan, Alina Komashchuk, Olena Kravatska, and Olha Zhovnir, was victorious at another World Cup event of 2014-2015 season, Vainqueur de la coupe Acropolis-2015, held in Athens on February 1, 2015. The National Fencing Federation of Ukraine reported on its website that this victory allowed our team to advance from the fifth place in the world classification, to which it dropped after missing the tournament in Venezuela, to the third position.
On its way to the finals, the “golden” Ukrainian quartet defeated Japanese (45:33) and Italians (45:34) first, and then went on to achieve a hard-fought victory over Americans in the semi-finals (45:44). When it came to the decisive duel in the Greek capital, our team decisively defeated Russians, beating them with a score of 45:35 and thus winning the trophy. The national team of Russia came the second, and the US stands third in the rankings.
Interestingly, February 1 gold medal was the second consecutive top award of the World Cup to be won by our athletes on that weekend. Leader of our women’s team Kharlan also won gold medal of the saber competition held the day before, on January 31. The tournament’s final saw the Ukrainian facing one of her most determined and uncomfortable opponents, Russian saber fencer Sofiya Velikaya. Kharlan triumphed 15:14 this time, besting her opponent by just one hit. The victory let our athlete to catch up with the Russian, as both now have two World Cup gold medals to their credit in this season.
Let us recall that our athlete successfully performed at the event held in New York (US) in mid-December 2014, while the Russian won the events held on the island of Margarita (Venezuela) and in New Orleans (US).
