Vision-impaired Ukrainian swimmer Mykhailo Serbin wins gold in record-breaking performance

Ukrainian swimmer Mykhailo Serbin, who competes in the classification for athletes with the highest level of visual impairment, defended his Tokyo title at Paris’s La Défense Arena on Sunday by winning the S11 men’s 100m backstroke, with his countryman Danylo Chufarov picking up the bronze behind him.

A row of sentinels stands at either end of the pool, a staff held lance-like in their hands. Each ends differently; some are topped by a lump of wadded padding, others a waterproof plastic ball. The sentinels, too, are utterly unalike, each one decked out in the colours of a different country. Each one, known as a "tapper", is here for just one person.

As the swimmers cut towards them through the water, the sentinels lean forward as one, their staffs at the ready. When the swimmers are almost within arms-reach of the wall, the staffs dip down towards the water, brushing the swimmers on their heads, hands, bellies, cheeks. The athletes twist weightlessly in the water, surging away from the unseen wall for their final lap. In this competition, the swimmers are almost completely blind.

Vision-impaired swimmer Mykhailo Serbin became the third Ukrainian athlete to win gold at the 2024 Paralympic Games on Sunday, setting a new world record in the S11 men's 100m backstroke in the capital's cavernous Paris La Défense Arena.

“I feel fantastic, because this is the second victory in the whole Paralympic Games that I’ve seen,” he said.

Serbin said the final lap of the race had been a rush.

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