Olha Kharlan place of birth Mykolaiv
Personal life
Kharlan was born in Nikolayev (now Mykolaiv), a shipbuilding town in the south of Ukraine. Her father was a sailing and swimming coach, and taught her to swim when she was still a baby. He also moonlighted as a construction worker and a cab driver. Her mother worked as a painter and plasterer.Kharlan first interest was in dancing, but the lessons were too expensive for her parents. When she was 10, her godfather, sabre coach Anatoly Shlikar, suggested she take up fencing, where the lessons were free. She came under the training of Artem Skorokhod, who remains her coach as of 2014. Her first success was the national Junior title, won when she was only 13 against teenagers up to five years older.Kharlan was educated at the Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding in Mykolaiv. She married fellow sabre fencer Dmytro Boiko in August 2014. They divorced later. She is currently dating Italian fencer Luigi Samele and they live in Bologna, Italy.
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