Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan won a saber event of the Grand Prix in Seoul (South Korea). Our athlete confidently overcame Hungarian Anita Marton in the quarter-final, winning 15 to 5. The semifinal battle proved to be the hardest, pitting Kharlan against her staunch opponent Sofia Velikaya from Russia. Kharlan won this bout by just four hits, ending it at 15:11. The final bout saw the Ukrainian almost single-handedly defeating American athlete Ibtihaj Muhammad 15:9.
According to the National Fencing Federation of Ukraine, this gold medal is Kharlan’s third in the current fencing season. After the World Championship 2014 in Kazan, where Kharlan confirmed her title of the planet’s strongest female saber fencer, she took part in five World Cup events, winning three of them (in New York in December 2014, Athens in January 2015, and Seoul in March 2015), as well getting a bronze medal (in Ghent in February 2015) and finishing ninth once (in Orleans in November 2014).
Her fellow Ukrainian Halyna Pundyk was ranked 13th as the event ended.
Among men, Nicolas Limbach from Germany proved to be the strongest one, winning his final bout with Frenchman Nicolas Rousset with a score of 15 to 8. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian sportsmen’s best showing was Andrii Yahodka’s 15th place.
“We are gladly noticing Kharlan’s strong patriotism. Unfortunately, some of her peers are looking for opportunities to represent other countries, while she has declared that she will fence for Ukraine as a matter of principle. She wants to win only with Ukraine and for Ukraine,” vice-president of the National Fencing Federation of Ukraine Vadym Gutzeit told The Day. “Kharlan is a maximalist, so she strives to win every competition she takes part in. She is right, because this behavior makes her opponents fear her, she eliminates even mere hope of victory in everyone else’s mind. When I coached Kharlan from 2004 to 2012, we practiced this technique: perceive the World Cup events as important training sessions before the crucial battles of World and European Championships. So far, she does everything right, perfecting her techniques and tactics. I trust her to display all her sport charisma at the decisive competitions. Both psychologically and physically, Kharlan is currently the strongest female saber fencer in the world. All-importantly, we have to keep this enthusiasm alive for the whole long season.”
