On Thursday, the 27th of July, the Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan, current four-time world saber champion, was disqualified from the Fencing World Cup, which takes place in Milan, for not greeting the Russian fencer Anna Smirnova (the rules of the International Fencing Federation fencing athletes are required to shake hands at the end of the bout).
I agree that issues of wars and conflicts between countries should stay out of the sporting world, but since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian conflict, all competitions have expelled Russian athletes/clubs from competitions.
In the case of fencing this does not happen, that is, Russian or Belarusian athletes can compete.
However, until Wednesday, the 26th of July, the Italian Ministry of Sport prohibited athletes from Ukrainian delegations from participating in competitions where there were Russian or Belarusian delegations.
On that day, the decree-law was changed to prohibit Russian and Belarusian delegations from participating in competitions where Ukrainian delegations are present, that is, instead of being the representatives of Ukraine to be banned, it became the representatives of Russia and Belarus to be banned to participate.
So how did Ana Smirnova participate?
Athletes can simply decide to go as neutral athletes instead of representing their country.
I'm not a fan nor do I follow Fencing, but since it's a world championship, this doesn't make sense because it's a competition between countries and there is no neutral country. The only time this was allowed at the Olympics was the Syrian refugee team.
This situation makes no sense at all because everyone knows the true nationality of the athlete and there will eventually be reactions like these, because after all, Russia invaded another country without any minimally valid reason.
In my humble opinion, to avoid these types of situations like these, all international federations should align themselves and take the same decision which is now banning Russian or Belarusian athletes/clubs from participating in competitions, but they cannot leave loopholes in which athletes decide to be independent.
