Fencing is among the least visible Olympic events, but a year before the 2024 Paris Games it is providing political, sports and family drama related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Three Russian fencers who repudiated the 2022 invasion and now live in the United States have been given eligibility to compete as neutral athletes, not representing any country, at the recent summer U.S. national championships in Phoenix, Arizona.
A top Russian coach has been fired after an all-star épée fencing couple left for the US in June. And a divorce of high-profile fencers has reached the upper echelons of the Russian Olympic Committee.
One of the Russian fencers now training in San Diego, California, Konstantin Lokhanov, 24, is the former son-in-law of the Russian Olympic Committee president and ex-husband of a Russian double Olympic gold medalist in fencing. Lokhanov won the saber fencing competition at the US championships after having competed for Russia at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games.
After winning in Phoenix, Lokhanov posed with a Ukrainian fencer as they both held up a Ukrainian flag in a defiant show of support. Lokhanov got the word “freedom” tattooed shortly after arriving in the US in May 2022.
In 2020, Lokhanov married 26-year-old Sofia Pozdnyakova, who later won gold medals at the Tokyo Games. She is the daughter of Stanislav Pozdnyakov, 49, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee and himself a four-time Olympic gold winner in fencing.
However, the marriage soon dissolved, and the separation was made public in September of last year. Lokhanov said that the divorce had happened for various reasons, the final one being war.
In an Instagram post in December, Lokhanov said he entered a “truly dark period” after his mother died of Covid-19 at the age of 43 in late 2021. After finishing a disappointing 24th in the competition with saber at the Tokyo Olympics, he also faced the second of two surgeries in Germany for a hip injury.
He flew to Munich for surgery on February 23, 2022. A day later, Russia invaded Ukraine. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia in May 2022 to stay with a friend and was later invited to join a fencing club in San Diego.
Another Russian fencer now in the United States, Sergey Bida, 30, won gold in the team épée event in Phoenix, two years after winning a silver medal for Russia in that event at the Tokyo 2021 Games. his wife Violetta Kraphina Bida, also an Olympian in Tokyo, left Russia last month.
Another Russian, 25-year-old Oleg Knysh, also competed in Phoenix.
International federations of some sports, including fencing, have begun granting athletes from Russia and Belarus — a close Russian ally — eligibility to compete as neutral athletes without national symbols. It is anticipated that this route will be extended to the Paris Games. If so, athletes from the two countries could potentially compete if they have not publicly supported the Russian invasion and are not affiliated with the Russian military or state security agencies.
Lokhanov and Bida are unlikely to obtain US citizenship before the Paris Olympics. Their best options appear to be to find another country that will grant them citizenship for the Games in Paris or seek to compete for the Refugee Olympic Team, said Jack Wiener, his attorney in New York.
Or maybe she can put off her dream and compete in the 2028 Games, near there in Los Angeles, Lokhanov said.
“I dream of going to the Olympic Games, driving my own car,” he said.
By: Jere Longman
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6810973, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-07-19 21:00:06
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