PARIS — In Lane 1, “representing AIN,” Evgenii Somov is alone.
He struts onto a pool deck at Paris La Défense Arena, but his white-and-teal jacket bears no insignia; his pitch-black swim cap has no flag; his nation, he says with a grin, when asked about the reception he’s received from countrymen back home, “kind of forgot about me.”
He is the only Russian swimmer at these Russia-shunned Olympics, and to get here, he had to wander through a maze of bureaucracy and eligibility conditions. He had to pay his own way, with some help from a GoFundMe.