Ukraine’s Kharlan disqualified after refusal to shake hands with Russian opponent

Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan has been disqualified after refusing to shake hands with Russian Anna Smirnova at the World Championships in Milan on Thursday.

Kharlan, a four-time Olympic medallist and world champion, won the individual sabre bout 15-7 and then refused to shake hands with her opponent.

Smirnova remained on the piste for over half an hour after the incident, speaking with a number of officials before leaving.

Ukrainian athletes in other sports – including tennis players Elina Svitolina and Marta Kostyuk – have also refused to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian opponents following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow using Belarus as a staging ground for what it calls a “special military operation”.

In fencing’s rules, shaking an opponent’s hand is mandatory and failure to do so results in a ‘black card’.

“We fully support Olga Kharlan in this situation. We are preparing a protest,” Mykhailo Illiashev, president of Ukraine’s fencing federation (NFFU), said in televised comments.

“We will appeal this decision, because the referee who judged this match did not give directly a black card or disqualify her.

“It was only later that the underhanded games began and this disqualification appeared already after the next opponent was determined, already after a judge for the next competition was determined.”

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ICC U-19 WC Qualifiers: Nigeria Back to winning Ways, beat Tanzania by 42 runs

Toss won by Nigeria and elected to bat first after passionately singing the National Anthem. Not the start Nigeria wanted  as 2 wickets fell in 2 overs on 2 runs only. Steady partnership by Damian Okeke and Victor Samuel to see Nigeria finish on 14 runs after 10 overs of Batting power play.

Still under the 50 runs, Nigeria lost  4 more wickets of the top 6 batting order despite building some form or partnership from the 10th over to the 25th. The players still playing with a lot of handbrake made it difficult for the runs to come as Nigeria continued to struggle.

Nigeria finally hit the half century mark after 26 overs. 2 back to back boundaries from Solomon Chilemayan relieved the pressure on the Nigeria bench temporarily as Tanzania continued to bowl spin as they had done from ball one.

Tanzania finally changed to some pace after 33 overs in a bid to break the partnership between Solomon and Sunday Joshua leaving Nigeria with their tournament’s highest score of 78 runs for the loss of 7 wickets after 35 overs.

A priceless 50 runs from Solomon Chilemayan proved to all that this team is capable of playing and Nigeria sat comfortably at 115 runs when Sunday Joshua was stumped out, bringing in Chiemelie  Udekwe at Number 10. Basking in confidence, he opened his account with a 6 off long on and a 4 down fine leg. Nigeria eventually finished with 149 all out in 47.4 overs.

Solomon Chilemayan was the star performer with the bat for Nigeria, unbeaten at 66 runs off 80 balls.

Damian Okeke  and Ridwan Abdulkareem scored 15 and 16 respectively as the other double figures for Nigeria.

In the second innings, Nigeria decided to play the same script like Tanzania by starting with spin, only that Nigeria rewrote the script even better to leave Tanzania on 43 runs for the loss of 4 wickets after 20 overs. 

Tanzania slowly started building a partnership but Joshua Asia was having none of it as he took the 5th wicket with Tanzania on 49 runs midway in the innings. 

Nigeria took the 6th wicket off the bowling of Damian Okeke in the 29th over with Tanzania in all sorts of trouble. Relief in the faces of the Nigeria coaching crew and smiles from the supporters as the team looked familiar once again.

At the end of 35  overs, Tanzania were 78 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. The game pretty much went the same way till the 40th  overs with Tanzania needing just 6.4 runs per over to win the game but would have to do that with 2 wickets. 

Nigeria introduced medium pacer  Izuchukwu in the 42nd over to change things a bit but unfazed by it, Tanzania continued to grind and picking up a couple of boundaries in the process. 

At 9 wickets for 98 runs in 44 overs, it was a matter of time before Nigeria tasted their 1st victory. In the end, Chiemelie signed off with the last wicket which meant Nigeria restricting  Tanzania to a decent score of 107 all out in 48 overs.

Solomon Chilemayan was named player of the match..

Nigeria won by 42 runs..