Ukraine Finishes Fourth in the Medal Table at the 2025 Youth European Fencing Championship: Tournament Recap
The national team's haul includes one gold, one silver, and two bronze medals.
The Youth European Fencing Championship, held April 24-27 in Tallinn, Estonia, in the under-23 category, has wrapped up. Ukraine finished fourth in the overall medal table and third by medal count, as reported by the Fencing Federation of Ukraine.
Ukrainian athletes headed to the European youth championship right after the national fencing championship, which ran April 19-22 in Kyiv. There, as later at the U23 European Championship, medalists and winners of the 2025 Junior World Championship in Wuxi competed — Anna Maksymenko and Alina Dmytruk, as well as Maksym Perchuk.
All of Team Ukraine U23's Medals at the 2025 European Fencing Championship
- Ukraine's first medal at the 2025 Youth European Fencing Championship was brought by foil fencer Olha Sopit, who won silver in the individual event on the first competition day. For the 22-year-old Kyiv native, this medal marked her fourth at the European U23 championship — she had previously won individual gold in Budapest in 2023, as well as team silver in 2023 and 2024.
This also made Olha the third fencer in Ukrainian history to win more than one individual medal at the Youth European Championship.
- 17-year-old Anna Maksymenko won her first title as European youth champion in individual fencing — in a tense final, she won against 2024 European champion Gaia Caforio of Italy.
After the team gold in Antalya in 2024, the Lviv native became just the second woman in epée after Emilie Conrad, and the seventh Ukrainian woman overall, to win individual gold at the U23 European Championship.
Anna Maksymenko, U23 Youth European Champion. Photo: Luca Pagliaricci / BizziTeam / EFC
- Two Ukrainian fencing teams at once secured a 'bronze double' on the third competition day. For the third straight year, foil fencers — Olha Sopit, Alina Polozіuk, Kateryna Budenko, and Kristina Petrova — reached the Youth European Championship podium, while Oleksandra Bondar, Daria Hontsova, Viktoriia Korotchenko, and Valeriia Morenets-Kubanska brought Ukraine its first sabre medal in this age category since 2018. As a result, at the 2025 Youth European Fencing Championship, the national U23 team won four medals in total — one gold, one silver, and two bronze.
Left to right: Olha Sopit, Kateryna Budenko, Oleksandra Bondar, Viktoriia Korotchenko, Valeriia Morenets-Kubanska, and Daria Hontsova. Photo: Luca Pagliaricci / BizziTeam / EFC
2025 Youth European Fencing Championship Overall Medal Table
- Italy — 13 medals (5 gold + 3 silver + 5 bronze)
- France — 10 (4+4+2)
- Switzerland — 3 (1+2+0)
- Ukraine — 4 (1+1+2)
- Israel — 3 (1+0+2)
Anna Maksymenko: The Full DeTalks Interview
The DeTalks team filmed its full interview with Anna Maksymenko, 2025 junior world and European fencing champion, ahead of the Junior World Championship in Wuxi. Watch it and other videos on the project's YouTube channel.