Ukraine wins bronze in women's sabre at U-23 European Fencing

On April 26, in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, the Ukrainian national sabre fencing team won bronze medals at the European Youth Championships (U-23). The team consists of Oleksandra Bondar and Viktoriia Korotchenko from Mykolaiv, Valeriia Morenets-Kubanska from Odesa, and Daria Gontsova from Cherkasy.

According to the Ukrainian Fencing Federation (UFF), this bronze medal brought Ukraine its first award at the European Youth Sabre Championships in seven years. For all four of them, this award was their debut at the European Youth Championships.

Artem Skorokhod's team started the competition with a quarterfinal match against Hungary. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the match the Ukrainians were down by nine goals (19:10), they managed to regain the advantage. Thanks to their confident play and perseverance, our athletes took the lead again, and Oleksandra Bondar managed to keep the advantage over Kira Kesey in the decisive fight, as she had done in the individual championship, with a score of 45:43.

In the semifinals, the Ukrainians fought against the main favorites of the tournament, the Italian national team, which included individual medalists Manuela Spica and Benedetta Fusetti. Although the Ukrainian team was inferior at the start, Oleksandra Bondar's brilliant series (16:5 victory over Spica) allowed them to reduce the gap from 12 strokes to one. In the final fight, Bondar again tried to turn the tide of the match, reducing the gap from -8 to -1, but the Italian scored the decisive blow - 43:45.

In the match for third place, the Ukrainian national team met the Romanian team. Despite the starting advantage of the rivals (2:5), the Ukrainians quickly seized the initiative, winning the next seven bouts. As a result, Oleksandra Bondar entered the final match with a +21 advantage and confidently brought the case to victory - 45:26.

The federation noted that this bronze medal was special, as Ukraine has not reached the podium in women's sabre at European Youth Championships since 2018. Back then, Yuliia Bakastova, Diana Zalevska, Yevheniia Alenina, and Olena Pysarenko won the same third place.

Ірина Глухова