I’m torn on this. On the one hand, I certainly understand her feelings and respect her choice to refuse the handshake, though she did offer an alternative. Should she have been punished for doing so on the grounds of being “unsportsmanlike”? Or should these athletes try to “rise above” the invasion and follow the rules?
This is going on in all 1x1 competitive sports. Tennis is the biggest one, but it’s been going on since the invasion. I don’t believe there has been any punishment in tennis, but I can imaging that in a fencing, a true combat sport, respect between opponents is taken more seriously.
Saluting the opponent (and referees and spectators) and shaking hands with the opponent is in fact an official rule in fencing that everybody knows about, similar to other martial arts and combat sports; failure to comply will get you kicked out of the tournament and suspended for 60 days.
Protesting is one thing but you go into it knowing what to expect, you can’t then complain that you were unjustly disqualified.
I recall that some Iranian and Algerian athletes pulled out of the competition or were disqualified and suspended for refusing to face Israeli athletes. For some reason I also remember the scene in Colonel Blimp when he fights a duel against a German officer, where the idea was that it was all very respectful even though their respective countries were enemies…
The IOC stepped in and awarded the Ukrainian a slot in the Olympics.
The article above reveals she had discussed it with an official and was assured her Sabre tap would be acceptable.
I’m glad she’s reinstated.
Hell, it’s pretty disgusting that Smirnova was allowed to back-door her way into the competition to begin with. (Russia as a nation has been excluded, but Russian athletes are competing as individuals AIUI.)
Nuts to this backdoor crap. Ukrainian civilians are getting blown up by Russian missiles daily. Bona fide exclusion of Russians from international competition is a quite reasonable price for Russian civilians to pay in return.
Hell, end Russian tourism to Western nations altogether. If they want to renounce their Russian citizenship, they should be welcome as refugees. But if you’re Russian, you shouldn’t get to play in the West, whether it’s lying on a beach or participating in athletic competitions. If you’re a Russian that’s negatively affected by this (it won’t kill you!) and you want to remain Russian, then do what you can to change your country.
If only other countries would apply this standard to the nation with the greatest incarceration rates and military spending.
Why? That’s not the same as being at war with them.
I assume she did not shake because of the war in Ukraine.
The thing is, her opponent has nothing to do with the war. She just happens to be Russian, through no fault of her own. One can certainly understand the feelings of Russia invading Ukraine but you can’t hate every Russian. It was certainly unsportsmanlike.
But to disqualify her for that? No. She expressed her feelings which she is allowed to do just like any other person living in a democracy, whether we agree with the sentiments or not. It was outside the game, not affecting it in any way. In my opinion, it was not the kind of offense to warrant disqualification.
She probably knew it would disqualify her. Some here more in the know said it’s part of the rules. She did it anyway so I do applaud her for that, even though I think it’s misplaced.
The World Fencing Championships are not a democracy. According to the rules it is not outside the game; honoring your opponent is part of most combat sports.
Russians by and large are supportive of the invasion of Ukraine, and this Russian in particular has multiple selfies on her social media of her alongside her brother in uniform. She’s competing as a “neutral” athlete, but her brother is in Ukraine participating in a genocidal war.
It’s not at all clear to me that “sportsmanship” requires one to shake hands with people adjacent to those genociding your home. If an athlete has renounced their nation’s team and is competing as a truly neutral athlete, then fine. But Russian athletes competing in events like this or in the Olympics as “neutral” are Team Russia with slightly modified uniforms and it is insulting to everyone to pretend otherwise.
Moderating (guest modding due to regular mod being unavailable):
This has nothing at all to do with the Ukraine/Russia conflict and how that affects sports. If you want to take political pot-shots at the U.S., please do so in a thread where such a comment would actually be on-topic.
It’s important to note that it was the Russian who refused the blade tap, which has been an allowed alternative to shaking hands since Covid. Kharlan was reassured by officials of this before the match.
Now there allegations that the whole thing was orchestrated from Moscow. Including an unknown man using someone’s else’s accreditation to be on the floor making demands.
Interesting! “Gelman summarized that the FIE is the most corrupt federation in the world.” More than FIFA? That’s quite corrupt!
Western countries have to thread a very tight needle, though, in that we are funding a major war against Russia while at the same time very officially not being at war with Russia. There are necessarily some tradeoffs in the diplomacy game here if we want to save Ukraine and wear down their armed forces without getting into World War Three.
Part of that is being careful how you treat individual Russians. They are not enemy aliens; we aren’t at war with Russia.