Sometimes I'm glad I lost my leg, says Jusufovic

Ermin Jusufovic still remembers the moment he woke up in a hospital bed in 1997, over a year after the end of the war in Bosnia.

He heard a voice, his father's voice, and the words which changed his life: "You don't have your leg any more.” Twenty-seven years later, Jusufovic, now 43, is one of the pillars of the Bosnia and Herzegovina sitting volleyball team.

A gold medallist at Athens 2004 and London 2012, he also has two silvers (Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016) and a bronze (Tokyo 2020) in his treasure chest.

Now the Most Valuable Player of the 2022 World Championship is aiming for a sixth Paralympic medal in Paris.

It has been quite a journey which began on May 19, 1997 in his village near Lukavac in the north-east of the country, a few days before his 16th birthday.

Jusufovic was out ploughing in the fields with his mother and twin brother.

Instead of making a 30-metre detour to avoid a "suspect plot of land" that had been on the frontline during the 1992-95 Bosnian War, he decided to walk across it.

"Something happened. I didn't realise it was an explosion," Jusufovic said. "I fell to the ground and lay there motionless. I could smell black powder. A mine." Then came darkness.