Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan wins country's 1st medal in Paris - ESPN

PARIS — A handshake could have cost Olga Kharlan her place at the Olympics. Instead, she won Ukraine's first medal of the Paris Games to give a country at war something to celebrate.

Kharlan overturned a six-point deficit to beat South Korea's Choi Sebin 15-14 for the women's saber fencing bronze medal Monday in a comeback that energized the crowd.

She counted to five on a hand decorated with nail varnish in Ukrainian yellow and blue, a five-time Olympian winning her fifth career medal.

Kharlan's latest medal is nothing like the others.

«I brought a medal to my country, and it's the first one, and it's going to be a good start for all our athletes who are here because it's really tough to compete when in your country is a war,» she said. «Every medal, it's like gold. I don't care [that] it's bronze. It's gold.»

Kharlan was disqualified from last year's world championships — a key Olympic qualifier — for refusing to shake the hand of a Russian opponent after winning their bout.

It was an incident that highlighted the tension over whether to allow Russian athletes to keep competing following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Amid a mounting backlash, the International Olympic Committee stepped in to hand Kharlan a «unique exception» — a guaranteed spot at the Games. Fencing's governing body rescinded a two-month ban it had imposed along with the disqualification and made handshakes optional soon after.

«I can say that I wouldn't change anything,» Kharlan said about whether she had thought her Olympic dream was over. «What I went through, it represents my country, what it goes through, and I wouldn't change anything. This is my story.»

Loud crowd gets a gold

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