The Sport-Express wrote about this in its article "Is Silence Gold? Why we lost the PR fight in the fencing handshake case", Sport-Express wrote about this. It noted that only the head of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Stanislav Pozdnyakov, had reacted to the scandalous situation at the World Championships in Milan.

"The reality of recent years and the entire modern world of post-truth shows that dozens of backroom deals in the world of big sports have been scrapped solely because of public outcry, geopolitical background and other insurmountable circumstances. We are constantly afraid of offending the leaders of world sport, who allegedly remain sympathetic to Russia, while our opponents cynically put pressure on officials through the media. You can see the result by looking at the list of domestic participants in international competitions over the past year and a half," the propagandists wrote.

As a reminder, Kharlan defeated Smirnova in the round of 32 of the 2023 World Cup in Milan. After the fight, our compatriot refused to shake hands with her opponent, after which she staged a real circus right on the track.

The Russian representative lodged a protest against the outcome of the duel, which was rejected. The propaganda TV channel Match TV published a photo of the denunciation that the Russian woman had written against Olga. As a result, the international federation disqualified Kharlan from the 2023 World Cup, but suspended its decision the next day.

It is worth noting that Smirnova is not a "neutral" athlete, as required by the competition regulations. The representative of the aggressor country's brother is a military officer, and she is very proud of him, as can be seen from their joint photos. Russian propagandists also issued a ridiculous fake about Kharlan.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, after a loud reaction in the world media to the scandal of Olga Kharlan's disqualification, the IOC made a sensational decision regarding the Ukrainian. Later, video evidence emerged that Olga was suspended from the World Cup after Russia put pressure on the tournament organisers.

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