'Vladimir Parfenovich (Belarusian: Уладзімір Парфяновіч; Russian: 'Владимир Владимирович Парфенович, Vladimir Parfenovich; born December 2, 1958 in Minsk) is a Soviet-born Belarus sprint canoer who competed from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. He later became involved in politics for his home country of Belarus.
Sport
Uladzimir Parfianovich trained at Dynamo in Minsk. He represented the USSR, and is the only sprint canoer to win three Olympic gold medals at the same Olympic Games (as of the 2008. He achieved this at 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, winning golds in the K-1 500 m, K-2 500 m, and K-2 1000 m events.
Parfenovich also won thirteen medals at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships with ten golds (K-1 500 m: 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983; K-2 500 m: 1979, 1981, 1982; K-2 1000 m: 1979, 1981, 1982) and three silvers (K-1 500 m: 1978, K-2 500 m: 1983, K-2 1000 m: 1983).
Politics
After retiring from canoeing, he worked as an instructor for the Sport ministry of Belarus, served in the KGB and police forces; and worked as representative for an Austrian firm. In 2000, Parenovich participated in parliamentary elections and won.
Democratic opposition in Belarus boycotted those elections to Alexander Lukashenko's parliament, charging that it was just a "puppet show". Even in this "puppet" parliament there eventually appeared dissenting voices who were not afraid to say that they don't like the authoritarian rule of Lukashenko. They formed a parliamentary group "Respublika". And Uladzimir Parfianovich was one of the members of this group.
On June 3, 2004 Uladzimir Parfianovich and two other members of parliament, general Valery Fralou and Siarhiej Skrabiec started a hunger-strike protesting that chair of the parliament didi not give them the floor for debate and did not put to vote their proposed amendments to the Election code. Several other opposition politician joined their hunger strike. The three politicians stopped the hunger strike after 18 days on June 21, when Parliament voted against their proposals.
One month later on July 21, 2004 on the tenth anniversary of Lukashenko's term in office, Parfianovich together with his colleagues organized a peaceful street protest which was roughly dispersed by the police.
Uladzimir Parfianovich is still engaged in Belarusian politics, actively opposing Alexander Lukashenko. For his political opposition activities, authorities have attempted to exclude him from the National Olympic Committee of Belarus, just before the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but at the last moment Lukashenko, who is also a president of the National Olympic Committee, did not sign the document.
Parfianovich lost his position as President of the Belarus Canoe/Kayak Federation in November 2005.
References
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Olympic Kayaking Champions in Men's K-2 1000 m |
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1936: Austria (Adolf Kainz, Alfons Dorfner) · 1948: Sweden (Hans Berglund, Lennart Klingström) · 1952: Finland (Kurt Wires, Yrjö Hietanen) · 1956: Germany (Michael Scheuer, Meinrad Miltenberger) · 1960: Sweden (Gert Fredriksson, Sven-Olov Sjödelius) · 1964: Sweden (Sven-Olov Sjödelius, Gunnar Utterberg) · 1968: Soviet Union (Aleksandr Shaparenko, Volodymyr Morozov) · 1972: Soviet Union (Nikolai Gorbachev, Viktor Kratasyuk) · 1976: Soviet Union (Serhei Nahorny, Vladimir Romanovsky) · 1980: Soviet Union (Vladimir Parfenovich, Sergei Chukhray) · 1984: Canada (Hugh Fisher, Alwyn Morris) · 1988: United States (Greg Barton, Norman Bellingham) · 1992: Germany (Kay Bluhm, Torsten Gutsche) · 1996: Italy (Daniele Scarpa, Antonio Rossi) · 2000: Italy (Antonio Rossi, Beniamino Bonomi) · 2004: Sweden (Markus Oscarsson, Henrik Nilsson) · 2008: Germany (Andreas Ihle, Martin Hollstein)
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