Vadym Gutzeit

Gutzeit took up fencing at the age of ten. He won the Ukrainian national championship when he was 15.

In 1988 he became USSR Junior Champion. He earned a gold medal in the Junior World Championships in 1989 and 1990. A year later, he won a silver medal in the same event, as well as an individual bronze medal and a team silver medal in the senior World Championships.[3]

He took part in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona for the Unified Team at the age of 20, and won the gold medal with them.[4] He also competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, finishing 6th in the individual sabre event after being defeated 14–15 in the quarter-finals by Russia's Stanislav Pozdnyakov, who eventually won the competition.[5] Gutzeit took part in his third Olympiads at the 2000 Sydney Games. Seeded No. 13, he lost 10–15 in the table of 16 to Domonkos Ferjancsik of Hungary. In the team competition, Ukraine finished 6th.[6]

In 1999, he came in 11th at the 1999 World Fencing Championships. [3]

Gutzeit, who is Jewish, took part in the 2001 Maccabiah Games and won the silver medal in the individual sabre. He was defeated in the gold medal final by Sergey Sharikov of Russia.[3] Gutzeit won the gold medal at the 2005 Maccabiah Games, reaping revenge over Sharikov of Russia, as Ukraine also won the team sabre gold medal.[7]

Gutzeit became in 2002 an international referee in foil and sabre for the International Fencing Federation. He has since officiated in many major competitions, including the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He has also been vice-president of the Ukrainian Fencing Federation since 2000, and a member of the executive committee of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine since 2004. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the FIE in 2013.

On 9 June 2019 Gutzeit announced he would take part in the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election with the party Servant of the People.[8] But 3 days later he withdrew from the election.[9]

Since 4 March 2020, Huttsait is Ukraine's Youth and Sport Minister.[10]

• List of select Jewish fencers

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vadym Huttsait.

• Vadym Gutzeit on Facebook
• Profile at the European Fencing Confederation