Fencers from Ukraine will not participate
There will be no skirmishes between Russians and Ukrainians at the Olympics
Image: Picture Alliance
Ukrainian fencers will not take part in competitions in which Russians also compete. The international associations leave them no other choice.
In July 1980, seven Afghans made their way from Kabul to Peshawar in Pakistan. The wrestlers of the Afghan national team preferred to cross the mountains along the Khyber Pass on foot than to fulfill the role intended for them by the sports officials: at the Summer Olympics in Moscow to claim that everything is for the best in their homeland, invaded and occupied by the Olympic hosts, the Soviet power.
Forty-three years later, the Ukrainian Fencing Federation has decided to withdraw from international competitions in which Russian and Belarusian fencers take up arms to defeat them. The Ukrainians nothing else was left. Should they compete against Russian opponents, who receive their pay from pots that the warlord in the Kremlin otherwise uses to finance murder, land grabs and war crimes in their homeland?
