Two podiums at the 2024 Paralympic Games were marked Monday by meetings between Ukrainian athletes and neutral athletes from Russia or Belarus. As the war in Ukraine continues, the exchanges were frosty between the different athletes, who refused to pose together in front of the cameras.
Belarusian swimmer Ihar Boki won his 20th world record on Monday, September 2e Paralympic title by winning the 50m freestyle S13 category, thus equalling France’s Béatrice Hess. With four gold medals already won in Paris, the 30-year-old visually impaired para swimmer is the most decorated man in the history of the Paralympic Games. He is second only to American Trischa Zorn, who won 32 titles between 1980 and 2004.
On the podium at the Paris Défense Arena, the champion did not face his national flag, but a white flag on which was written the acronym “AIN” for “neutral individual athlete”, due to the international sanctions taken against Russia and its allies since the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022. It was the Paralympic anthem that resonated to salute his new success.
- FRANCE 24
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