Ukraine wins its first gold medal of the Paris Olympics, in women's team saber fencing

PARIS (AP) — Olga Kharlan got the winning touch for Ukraine's first gold medal of the Paris Olympics, ripped off her fencing mask and sank to her knees.

When she got up again, it was to dance on the piste wrapped in a Ukrainian flag and join teammates Alina Komashchuk, Olena Kravatska and Yuliia Bakastova in the celebrations.

Kharlan went in for the final leg of the women's team saber final with South Korea on Saturday needing to turn around a three-point deficit to keep her team in the contest.

She'd been thinking of Ukrainian troops fighting on the front lines as motivation, trying to keep her own emotions in check “like a robot.” And then she heard the crowd in Paris chanting her name.

“I couldn’t believe it. They’re shouting ‘Olga, Olga!'” she said. “It’s beautiful. Thank you, Paris.”

Facing South Korea's Jeon Ha-young, Kharlan said she realized the key right then was to relax. She did just that, and scored the eight points Ukraine needed for a 45-42 victory.

“At some point I said ‘I’m going to have fun, I’m going to enjoy this moment,’” Kharlan said. “I enjoyed all the fencing and just went for it.”

It was Kharlan's second medal in Paris after an individual saber bronze, and the sixth overall from five Summer Games for the country's most decorated Olympian. She hadn't won a gold medal since 2008 in Beijing, when she was 17.

Kharlan and her team were six points down early in the gold-medal match before rallying for the win. Kharlan went a combined 22-10 from her three matchups in the nine-leg final.

“We cheer for our athletes and support them as a nation. Ukraine knows how to inspire both at the Olympic Games and times like these!” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a message of congratulations on social media.

Ukraine had two medals in Paris before Saturday's final; a silver in shooting from Serhiy Kulish and the bronze that Kharlan won Monday.

Now Kharlan is heading back to Ukraine next week for the first time since April to see her parents.

She'll leave Paris with her two medals a year after she was disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of a Russian fencer, something which put her Olympic qualification in jeopardy. The International Olympic Committee stepped in to allow Kharlan a direct spot at the Paris Games.

“One year ago, I was almost done with fencing because I was disqualified,” she said. “This is the story that has a very happy end. I would like to say thank you to everyone who made it happen. And believe, work, never give up — like Ukraine.”

That incident at the world championships highlighted the tension over whether to allow Russian athletes to keep competing following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. There are 15 Russians competing at the Paris Olympics, but as Individual Neutral Athletes. None of them are competing in fencing.

More than two years on from Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has its smallest Olympic team since independence from the Soviet Union, with 142 athletes across all sports.

Japan beat France 45-40 for the bronze medal, even though the French team had individual gold medalist Manon Apithy-Brunet and silver medalist Sara Balzer.

Associated Press journalist Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

South Korea's Jeon Hayoung competes with Ukraine's Alina Komashchuk in the women's team sabre final match during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

South Korea's Jeon Hayoung, left, competes with Ukraine's Olga Kharlan in the women's team sabre final match during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Ukraine's Olga Kharlan celebrates after defeating South Korea during the women's team sabre final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Ukraine's Olga Kharlan celebrates after defeating South Korea during the women's team sabre final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

South Korea's Jeon Hayoung, left, competes with Ukraine's Alina Komashchuk in the women's team sabre final match during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Ukraine's Olga Kharlan celebrates after winning the women's team sabre final match against South Korea during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Ukraine's Olga Kharlan celebrates after winning the women's team sabre final match against South Korea during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Ukraine's Olga Kharlan celebrates after winning the women's team sabre final match against South Korea during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

NEW YORK (AP) — In what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday, killing at least nine people — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounding thousands more.

A U.S. official said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated — on Tuesday after it was concluded. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

The Iran-backed militant group blamed Israel for the deadly explosions, which targeted an extraordinary breadth of people and showed signs of being a long-planned operation. Details on how the attack was executed are largely uncertain and investigators have not immediately said how the pagers were detonated. The Israeli military has declined to comment.

Here's what we know so far.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying they could be used by Israel to track the group's movements. As a result, the organization uses pagers to communicate.

A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the exploded devices were from a new brand the group had not used before. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, did not identify the brand name or supplier.

Nicholas Reese, adjunct instructor at the Center for Global Affairs in New York University’s School of Professional Studies, explains smart phones carry a higher risk for intercepted communications in contrast to the more simple technology of pagers.

This type of attack will also force Hezbollah to change their communication strategies, said Reese, who previously worked as an intelligence officer, adding that survivors of Tuesday's explosions are likely to throw away "not just their pagers, but their phones, and leaving their tablets or any other electronic devices.”

Even with a U.S. official confirming it was a planned operation by Israel, multiple theories have emerged Tuesday around how the attack might have been carried out. Several experts who spoke with The Associated Press explained how the explosions were most likely the result of supply-chain interference.

Very small explosive devices may have been built into the pagers prior to their delivery to Hezbollah, and then all remotely triggered simultaneously, possibly with a radio signal.

By the time of the attack, “the battery was probably half-explosive and half-actual battery," said Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec.

A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge.

“A pager has three of those already,” explained the ex-officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he now works as a consultant with clients on the Middle East. “You would only need to add the detonator and the charge.”

After security camera footage appeared on social media Tuesday purporting to show one of the pagers explode on a man’s hip in a Lebanese market, two munitions experts offered opinions that corroborate the U.S. official's statement that the blast appeared to be the result of a tiny explosive device.

“Looking at the video, the size of the detonation is similar to that caused by an electric detonator alone or one that incorporates an extremely small, high-explosive charge,” said Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert.

This signals involvement of a state actor, Moorhouse said. He adds that Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, is the most obvious suspect to have the resources to carry out such an attack.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an expert in military arms who is director of the Australian-based Armament Research Services, notes that Israel had been accused of carrying out similar operations in the past. Last year, AP reported that Iran accused Israel of trying to sabotage its ballistic missile program through faulty foreign parts that could explode, damaging or destroying the weapons before they could be used.

It would take a long time to plan an attack of this scale. The exact specifics are still unknown, but experts who spoke with the AP shared estimates ranging anywhere between several months to two years.

The sophistication of the attack suggests that the culprit has been collecting intelligence for a long time, Reese explained. An attack of this caliber requires building the relationships needed to gain physical access to the pagers before they were sold; developing the technology that would be embedded in the devices; and developing sources who can confirm that the targets were carrying the pagers.

And it's likely the compromised pagers seemed normal to their users for some time before the attack. Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based veteran and a senior political risk analyst with over 37 years experience in the region, said he has had conversations with members of Hezbollah and survivors of Tuesday's pager attack. He said the pagers were procured more than six months ago.

“The pagers functioned perfectly for six months," Magnier said. What triggered the explosion, he said, appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices.

Based on his conversations with Hezbollah members, Magnier also said that many pagers didn’t go off, allowing the group to inspect them. They came to the conclusion that between 3 to 5 grams of a highly explosive material were concealed or embedded in the circuitry, he said.

Jenzen-Jones also adds that “such a large-scale operation also raises questions of targeting" — stressing the number of causalities and enormous impact reported so far.jenzen

“How can the party initiating the explosive be sure that a target’s child, for example, is not playing with the pager at the time it functions?” he said.

Hezbollah issued a statement confirming at least two members were killed in the bombings. One of them was the son of a Hezbollah member in parliament, according to the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously. The group later issued announcements that six other members were killed Tuesday, though it did not specify how.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will “for sure get its just punishment.”

People donate blood for those who were injured by their exploded handheld pagers, at a Red Cross center, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)