PARIS– Ukraine won its first gold medal at the Paris Olympics by defeating South Korea in the women’s team fencing final on Saturday.
The Ukrainian team recovered from a six-point deficit to beat South Korea 45-42, with 22 points from individual bronze medalist Olga Kharlan. She came into the last stage of the fight with her team with a 40-37 deficit and went 8-2 to win.
Ukraine won two medals before Saturday’s final; a silver in Serhiy Kulish’s shot and the bronze Kharlan won on Monday in the women’s saber.
This was particularly emotional moment for Kharlan, a year after she was disqualified from the world championships for refusing to shake hands with a Russian fencer, something that briefly put her Olympic qualification in jeopardy.
It was an incident that highlighted tension over whether to allow Russian athletes to continue competing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Five-time Olympic champion Kharlan won her sixth Olympic medal in a career that began with gold in women’s team saber at the 2008 Olympics when she was 17.
Japan beat France 45-40 for the bronze medal, although the French team had individual gold medalist Manon Apithy-Brunet and silver medalist Sara Balzer.
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