Konstantin Lokhanov

Konstantin Lokhanov (Russian: Константин Игоревич Лоханов; born 10 November 1998; nicknamed Kostya) is a Russian sabre fencer living in San Diego, California, in the United States.

Lokhanov was ranked # 1 in the world in cadet sabre in both 2014 and 2015.

He was ranked #1 in the world in cadet sabre in both 2014 and 2015.

In 2014 he won a bronze medal at the European Cadet Championships in Jerusalem, Israel, and a bronze medal in the 2014 World Cadets Fencing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

In 2015 Lokhanov won a gold medal at the European Cadet Championships in Maribor, Slovenia, and a silver medal in the 2015 World Cadets Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Lokhanov won a bronze medal at the January 2016 Phoenix Fencing World Cup in Arizona, in the United States.

He won silver medals at the October 2016 Plovidv World Cup in Bulgaria, and the November 2016 Sochi World Cup in Russia.

Lokhanov also won a gold medal in team sabre at the 2016 World Junior Fencing Championships.

That year he received the title of Master of Sport of International Class in the Russian Federation.

He was then a two-time World Junior Sabre Individual Champion (in 2017 and 2018), and ranked # 1 in the world for both those years.

In 2021, he competed in sabre at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The following year, appalled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he defected to the United States.

He said: "I decided I could no longer live in a country that kills innocent Ukrainians."

He is a now member of USA Fencing.

Lokhanov was born in Aktobe, Kazakhstan.

He does not consider himself truly Russian, noting "I don’t even drink vodka."

He and his parents moved to Saratov, Russia, when he was a child.

His mother worked in government procurement in the Saratov Ministry of Health, his father worked as a signalman, and the family was not wealthy.

His mother often had to borrow money to send him to competitions.

He studied at the Saratov State Academy of Law in the Russian Federation.

His mother, with whom Lokhanov was very close, died of COVID-19 at the end of 2021 during the pandemic, at 43 years of age.

His father moved to Kazakhstan after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Lokhanov began fencing when he was eight years old, inspired by watching the Soviet Musketeers and Star Wars to ask his mother to take him to learn to fence.

He is also a two-time world junior sabre champion (2017, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; 2018 in Verona, Italy), and was ranked #1 in the world those years in junior sabre.

Lokhanov won the 2017 World Junior Fencing Championship in individual sabre, as well as in team sabre.

In March 2017 he won a bronze medal in the European Junior Championships.

Lokhanov won a gold medal at the October 2017 Sosnowiec World Cup in Poland, and won a bronze medal at the 2017 Plovidv World Cup in Bulgaria.

He won a gold medal at the November 2017 Sochi World Cup in Russia.

In 2017, he was ranked the #1 junior sabre fencer in the world.

Lokhanov repeated, and won the 2018 World Junior Fencing Championship in individual sabre, giving him a total of four junior world championships.

In March 2018, at the European Junior Championships is Sochi, Russia, he won a silver medal in sabre team and a bronze medal in individual sabre.

In 2018, he was ranked the #1 junior sabre fencer in the world for the second year in a row.

He came in 7th in team sabre, and 24th in individual sabre (losing to 2018 world champion Kim Jung-hwan of South Korea).

Used to winning gold medals, Lokhanov was devastated that he had not performed better at the Olympics, and upon arriving home he "lay in bed for a month, ordering food delivery."

Describing what his Olympic experience had been like, he said: "The Olympic Village is an island of broken dreams. Everyone comes there joyful and inspired, although, naturally, they are nervous. And then there are competitions every day. And every day there are more and more sad people. Several thousand people take part in the Olympics, and hundreds of them win medals. And the rest simply remain in the shadows, go home with nothing, as happened to us."

Lokhanov went into surgery in Germany for a hip injury the day before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and woke up to the news of the attack.

Shocked and troubled by Russia's invasion, Lokhanov decided, there and then, not to return to Russia; he says his decision took him 10 seconds.

Lokhanov has no desire to fence for Russia again.

At the 2019 World Fencing Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Lokhanov was defeated in the quarter-finals by gold medal winner Oh Sang-uk of South Korea.

In 2021, Lokhanov competed in sabre at the Tokyo Olympics.