PARIS: Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan says winning an Olympic gold medal will be an achievement against all odds after fearing it was “my fate not to go to Paris”.

The 33-year-old four-time world champion, who won two individual Olympic bronze medals and a gold medal in the sabre team in 2008, nearly missed the Games twice.

Kharlan, who lives in Italy, considered quitting the sport in December 2022 when her fortunes hit rock bottom. She feared for the safety of her family in Ukraine after the Russian invasion that year.

A bronze medal at the Grand Prix of Tunis in early 2023 convinced her to continue.

“I thought, ‘Okay, I can do it, I’m going to fight.’ And of course there was a lot of support from Ukraine,” she said AFP at the European Championships in June.

“You can’t imagine how much they follow us, those soldiers who defend us at the front.”

Her Olympic dreams could be dealt a blow when she was disqualified from the world championships for refusing to shake hands with her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, costing her valuable qualifying points for the Games.

However, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, himself a winning Olympic fencer, came to her defense, offering her “his full support” and an automatic place in Paris because of her “unique situation.”

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“In the end it’s not that bad,” said Kharlan, who will be seeking gold in the individual sabre event on Monday.

“But this was one of the worst days of my life. I was desperate, I had the worst crying fit of my life for a few hours,” she recalls.

“I was sitting on the floor in the Ukrainian box, feeling helpless, angry and sad at the same time.

“I felt empty because I fought to suspend the Russians. I thought it was my fate not to go to the Olympics.”

Kharlan said there is an extra motivation in her Olympic campaign.

“When the competition starts, you want to prove something so badly, you want to win for your country, for your parents,” she said. AFP in June.

‘Like a lottery’

“Because sport gives hope and good emotions.”

Kharlan, who lost teammates to war, will be thinking of her family back home in the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv when she competes in the individual sabre gold medal match on Monday.

“At the beginning of the war I went to Ukraine to take my sister and nephew to Italy,” said Kharlan, who lives in Bologna with her Italian fencing friend Luigi Samele.

“My mother decided to stay with my father because he was 59 years old and men under 60 were not allowed to leave.

“Nobody knew how it would end, because Mykolaiv is next to Kherson, which was occupied.

“We had to leave within a day, the decision was made very quickly and my mother decided not to go. This is our Ukrainian soul and spirit.”

She added: “There are about five air raid sirens every day in Mykolaiv… but my mother is very tough.”

“Sometimes I just don’t look at my phone during the day,” says Kharlan, whose sister and nephew have returned from Italy to live in Kiev.

“There was a match when I saw something happening in Kiev, and ten minutes later I had to go out on the strip to fence.

“I called my family and no one answered. This is the worst. I started to panic because you never know, it’s like a lottery. Unfortunately, we get used to it.”