At the Paris La Défense Arena pool complex, the 30-year-old merman set a world record in the four styles of the SM13 category (visually impaired) with a time of 2:02.03 minutes, to relegate the French Alex Portal (2:06.66) and the Russian Vladimir Sotnikov (2:10.56) to silver and bronze, respectively.

Boki, who competes under a neutral flag like the Russian Para athletes, thus climbed to the top of the podium for the fifth time at the Paris event, after winning titles in the 100m backstroke, 100m butterfly, 400m freestyle and 50m freestyle.

The Bobruisk native won his 21st Paralympic gold medal, which is why the media calls him the “Belarusian Phelps”, referring to the American swimmer who has been an Olympic champion on 23 occasions.

At London 2012, Boki won five titles and one runner-up finish; four years later, in Rio de Janeiro, he dominated six events and finished third in another, and at Tokyo 2020 he won five crowns.

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