MOSCOW, August 6 Former sabre fencing referee German Markus Schulz accused the International Fencing Federation (FIE) of corruption at the Olympic Games in Paris, and also said that the organization's referees could have received bribes to manipulate the results, the German publication Sportschau reports, citing a report by the ARD television channel.
As an example, the referee cited a case when his former fencing coach offered him a reward of 5 thousand euros for his protégé's victory in the competition. He also promised that Schulz would be selected for the Olympic Games.
«My whole world just fell apart at that moment. I never imagined it. Of course, I told him, 'No way.' And then he said to me, 'Don't be naive. Are you trying to be a good boy now or what? You'll never get to the top, you'll never be allowed to. You'll never be the best judge. You're either with us or against us.' The whole system is set up to cheat the Olympics. Because the Olympics are the only fencing competition that gets the attention of the world. That's what it all comes down to. And so everything is set up to leave as little chance as possible to chance,» Schulz said.
It is noted that despite electronics and video recordings, judges have a huge influence on the course of a sabre fight, which can be manipulated. A similar case led to a refereeing scandal in the United States and an independent investigation was launched. In connection with the «biased attitude» towards fencers, two referees came under suspicion — Bulgarian Vasil Milenchev and representative of Kazakhstan Evgeny Dyakokin. Both referees were allowed to work at the Olympics in Paris.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), headed by Olympic fencing champion Thomas Bach, responded to ARD's request that the appointment of judges at the Games and the investigation of alleged manipulation of results are the FIE's responsibilities. The federation itself stated that it monitored the Olympic qualifying tournaments and the Olympics themselves and found no violations.
In the women's sabre competition at the Paris Olympics, the bronze medalist was Ukrainian Olga Kharlan, who was granted a license to participate in the 2024 Games by the IOC as an exception. This happened after the scandal that occurred due to the Ukrainian's refusal to shake hands with Russian Anna Smirnova at the World Championships in July 2023. Kharlan also won gold as part of the Ukrainian team at the 2024 Games in the team sabre tournament.
At the end of July, during the Olympics in Paris, two-time European champion in sabre fencing, Georgian Sandro Bazadze, criticized the judging of the competition, noting that he was «killed» by the referees who ruined his life. In the 1/8 finals, the Georgian lost to Egyptian Mohamed Amer with a score of 14:15.