Fencing is usually among the least visible Olympic events, but a year out from the Paris Games it is providing political, sporting and familial drama related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Three Russian fencers who renounced the 2022 invasion in written declarations and now live in the United States were granted eligibility to compete as neutral athletes, representing no country, in the American summer national championships that conclude Sunday in Phoenix.
And that’s just the beginning of the drama. A top Russian coach has been fired after a star epee couple left three weeks ago for the United States. And a high-profile fencing divorce has touched the upper reaches of the Russian Olympic Committee and even led to the entry of “raspberry frappe” into the lexicon as a sword-fighting put-down.
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