“The accident happened on May 19, 1997. I wasn’t even 16 yet,” recalls Jusufovic, who was named the most valuable player at the 2022 World Championships, in an interview with AFP in Sarajevo.

In his village near Lukavac, northeastern Bosnia, just twelve days before his 16th birthday, Ermin was working the land with his mother and twin brother. The war had ended a year prior. Rather than detour “30 to 40 metres” to avoid a “suspicious area, that had been a front line” during the war (1992-1995), he chose to cross it.

“Something happened. I didn’t realise it was an explosion. I was lying on the ground, motionless. I smelled black powder, a landmine,” recounts Jusufovic after a training session ahead of the Paralympic Games, which take place on 28 August 28 until 8 September.

The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital bed. "You have to accept it. I asked my parents if they had amputated my leg. I knew they couldn’t save it, having seen it. My mother mumbled something, and my father told me: you’re no longer going to have your leg. You have to accept it, sooner or later. You’ll have to live with it,” he said.

“That’s when the first tears came, along with everything else that’s normal in those circumstances. I was like that for six months. Then came the first prosthetic and, with it, the first tears of joy,” he explained.

A few months later, the coach of the local sitting volleyball team saw him at a medical centre and invited him to train. “I told him, alright, I’ll come check it out. But then, at home, I thought it was impossible, that I couldn’t let them see me without a leg,” Jusufovic recalls with a smile, thinking back to those days of “stressful and unnatural situations.”

Post-war landmine accidents caused over 1,150 injuries and 624 deaths in Bosnia, according to official data. A turning point for him was meeting Safet Alibasic, now his teammate on the national team, which led him to attend his first training session.

This was in 1998. Jusufovic remembers “difficult” practices, very physical and often without a ball. Though above all, he recalls the great motivation. He also trained at home, lost 30 kg in a year, and achieved an ideal weight.

Three years later, Ermin won a gold medal with the national team at the European Championship in Hungary. Since then, he has participated in every tournament with the team. Their biggest rival is Iran, a world powerhouse in the sport with seven Olympic gold medals and two silvers from nine appearances.

Of Bosnia’s 16 gold medals, two were won at the Paralympic Games (2004 and 2012), eleven at European Championships, and three at World Championships. Jusufovic, 43, is determined to defeat Iran in the final in Paris and claim his third Paralympic gold medal.

Did he ever experience moments of weakness in his 23-year career? “There were times when I thought about quitting. I asked myself if I needed it,” admitted the father of two, who works in the sports and youth department of Tuzla's cantonal administration.

“But the fact is, I am the best version of myself on the sitting volleyball court. It has always been important for me to keep going. It’s what keeps me alive,” he stated. “Once I’m in training, I never question why I’m there.” Sports, he says, allowed him to travel the world, make friends, have fun, and build a family whose support is “crucial” to him. “Sometimes I say: luckily, I lost a leg.”