SARAJEVO: 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 anymore.”
Twenty-seven years later, Jusufovic, 43, is one of the pillars of the Bosnian sitting volleyball team. A gold medallist in Athens and London, he has two silvers and a bronze in his treasure chest. Now the MVP of the 2022 World Cup 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 sixteenth 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 front line during the 1992-95 war, he decided to walk across it. "Something happened. I didn’t realize it was an explosion,” Jusufovic told AFP. "I fell to the ground and lay there motionless. I could smell black powder. A mine.” Then came darkness.
‘You must accept it’
Jusufovic was hardly the first to take a wrong step in a Bosnian field. According to official figures, post-war mine accidents in the country have left more than 1,150 people injured and 624 dead. He was one of the relatively lucky ones.
When he came to in hospital his family was with him. "I asked my parents if my leg had been cut off,” he says. "I knew it couldn’t be saved, the way I’d seen it.” "My mother stammered something. Then my father said: ‘You don’t have your leg anymore. You have to accept that sooner or later. You’ll have to live with it.’
"Then the tears came and all the other stuff you’d expect in the circumstances. For six months. "And then with the first prosthesis, the first tears of joy.” That joy was followed some months later by another slice of luck when the coach of the local sitting volleyball club spotted him at a medical facility and invited him to a training session.
"I said okay, I’ll drop in,” says Jusufovic with a smile. "Then at home, I said to myself, no chance. It was inconceivable to be seen without a leg.” He did not go that time but it had opened the door and after a a meeting in a convalescent bath with Safet Alibasic, now his team-mate in the national team, he changed his mind.
Jusufovic decided to go with Alibasic to his first training session. That was in 1998. He remembers the sessions that followed as "difficult” and very physical but suddenly he was motivated. He exercised constantly at home, and lost 30 kilos in one year, honing his body to improve his game.
‘The best version of myself’
Three years later, Jusufovic was in the national team that won the European Championships in Hungary. Since then, he has not missed a single major tournament as Bosnia emerged as the only genuine, consistent rival for Iran who remain the benchmark for the sport worldwide, with seven golds and two silvers in nine Paralympics.
Apart from their gold medals in 2004 and 2012, Bosnia have also won three world championships and 11 European titles. Iran and Bosnia will again be the favourites in Paris: they are in different pools and cannot meet before the semi-finals or the final.
Jusufovic is far from being the oldest in the squad but he has to balance his sporting career with a family life and a day job. The father of two is working for the cantonal administration in Tuzla in the field of sport and youth.
But he has no regrets over how his 23-year sports career has panned out, especially as it has enabled him to travel the world, make friends and have a family whose support is "crucial” to him.
"There were times when I thought about giving up. I wondered if I needed this,” he admits. "But one fact I’m certain of: I’m the best version of myself on the sitting volleyball court. It’s what keeps me going. "Once I get to training, I never ask myself why I came. "Sometimes I say: I’m glad I lost my leg.” — AFP