Shavarsh Karapetyan: From finswimming world champion to Superman russiaherald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from russiaherald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shavarsh Karapetyan: From finswimming world champion to ‘Superman’ D. Prants, Gerbert Bagdasaryan/TASS There is no shortage of sporting greats in the Soviet and Russian pantheon, but one world record-breaking finswimmer literally earned his hero’s badge by risking his life twice to save more than 20 people.
On a sunny fall day in Moscow in 2013, a former Soviet athlete made the news for the wrong reasons. Shavarsh Karapetyan ran with a flameless Olympic torch through the Kremlin for a few seconds, before an official lit it with a cigarette lighter.
While the incident caused momentary international embarrassment for Russia, which wanted to showcase its resurgence for the Sochi 2014 Olympics, the Russian public was reminded of the almost-forgotten heroics of Karapetyan from the 1970s and 1980s.