Ihar Boki is now the most successful gold prospector at the Paralympic Games. In two days, in the Paris La Défense Arena pool, the Belarusian swimmer has just added two gold medals to his collection started at the London Games in 2012. With 18 titles to his name, he is one more than the Swedish parashooter Jonas Jacobsson (between 1980 and 2012) and the Canadian swimmer Michael Edgson (between 1984 and 1992). And his harvest should undoubtedly be enriched at the end of the three other events on his menu (400 m freestyle, 50 m freestyle and 200 m medley).
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On Friday, August 30, no one made the reigning triple Paralympic champion tremble in the 100m backstroke (S13 category, reserved for the visually impaired): Boki touched the wall (56.60) ahead of the Russian Vladimir Sotnikov (57.95) and Alex Portal (59.08). The day before, in the 100m butterfly, the 22-year-old Frenchman almost brought down the “Belarusian Phelps”, but the gold slipped through his fingers, at the touchline.
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For more than a decade, the 1.90 m swimmer has reigned supreme in his category, versatile in all four strokes. In his country, “the torpedo of Babruysk”, one of his nicknames, is decorated with the Order of Merit to the Fatherland and has a stamp bearing his image.
But since Thursday, Ihar Boki has not been allowed to hear his national anthem, nor to see the green and red Belarusian flag raised when he climbs onto the podium. Instead, the audience sees a white flag with the acronym AIN for “neutral individual athlete” written on it while the Paralympic anthem plays. “Of course, it’s a little sad not to see your flag, evacuated the athlete on Friday evening, wearing a neutral lilac-colored tracksuit. But everyone knows us, everyone supports us.” His victories are also not counted in the medal table.
96 Russian and Belarusian athletes at the Games
Officially, the Belarusian is not representing his country in Paris. Russia and its ally Belarus have not received a formal invitation to the Olympic and Paralympic Games since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In September 2023, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) decided to partially suspend the Russian and Belarusian committees for two years, but to allow their athletes to compete in Paris as individuals and under neutral banners, provided they are eligible – and successfully qualify. As with able-bodied athletes, they had to complete a survey to prove that they had never actively supported the war in Ukraine and that they are not under contract with military or national security agencies.
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