Viktoria Horpenchenko, fencing champion

The second interview of this series is with Ukrainian Viktoria Horpenchenko, 19 years old, foil fencer and student in STAPS (sport science and tech) and management courses, who’s attending an awe-inspiring higher education and sport career made of determination and courage.

Hello Viktoria, could you explain why you currently live in France?

First, I want to thank France for welcoming me, and all those who helped us, with special thanks to Campus France for helping me learn French! I couldn’t speak a word when my family and I arrived in France in March 2022, one month after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. My grandfather died under Russian bombs in the first weeks of the occupation... So, since the road was still open, we decided to leave. Fleeing from Kiev, we had to go to Belgium where my mother’s sister lived.

First, I want to thank France for welcoming me, and all those who helped us, with special thanks to Campus France 

Why the change of destination?

During our journey, when we arrived in Austria, we were hosted by a family. But my mother, surfing on Facebook, met someone who helped Ukrainians in Montauban since the beginning of the war. When we were on the road, this person found us a lovely French family where we have lived for three months, who is now among our dearest friends. This is how we ended in Southern France. But, since I am a top-level athlete and member of Ukraine’s national team, all this time without fencing was unbearable for me! There was no foil fence club in Montauban or Toulouse, so a Ukrainian friend pushed me to write to the French national team. And just like that, thanks to the help of the fencing club BEC Escrime in Bordeaux, its coaches and Edith Lubeigt, the current president of the club, I could start training in Bordeaux, and I can aim at a higher level! I’ve been fencing since I’m 12, and in France, with a French coach, foil master Dimitri Audren, I can do it. At first, I had trouble with the language, but after attending French classes in the Alliance Française for one semester, since I had passed the equivalent of the “baccalauréat” in Ukraine, I could register to a STAPS Licence course [a bachelor course in sports, and science and tech in sports] in Bordeaux. At the same time, I’m attending a remote class in the Ukrainian Academy of Management, where I study the fundamentals in business, but also marketing and psychology.

And what about your sporting career?

It’s not in pause, far from it! I constantly train, I’m in competitions every weekend. I travel throughout Europe, and I even had the chance to attend a one-month practice in the United States. I was one of the best fencer in Ukraine, and today I’m a fencing champion in France, a title I claimed last year at the French team championship. I'm also a French university team champion, and the 2024 individual bronze medallist. I was allowed to come back to Ukraine for a few days to take part in the foil championship in my country, a championship that I won. Since I’m still a junior, I could not qualify for th Olympic Games in Paris, but I’m looking towards the World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games that will be held in Los Angeles, in the United States.

In beyond these sport projects?

How could I talk about my future when I’m still very young and, when we see how the war started, everything changed in the blink of an eye. Will I come back to Ukraine? Will I stay in France? Will I join the French national team? Who knows? First, I have to complete my studies, improve my French and stay in France for now. What will I do first? First, a sporting career, that’s for sure. But after that? Sport teacher, sport agent, manager, psychologist or marketer? What’s for sure is that I love France, a country that opened so many opportunities for me and that the relationship I have with France is not about to disappear!