Victor Boin

Victor Boin was a Belgian freestyle swimmer, water polo player and épée fencer, born on 28 February 1886 and died on 31 March 1974, who competed at the 1908, 1912 and 1920 Summer Olympics. He was part of the Belgian water polo teams that finished second in 1908 and third in 1912, and as a fencer he finished fourth in the individual épée in 1912 and won a silver medal in the team épée in 1920. At the 1920 Games in Antwerp he took the first ever Olympic Oath and carried the Belgian flag at the Opening Ceremony. Away from the pool and the piste he founded the first Belgian ice hockey club in 1903, worked as a sports journalist and theatre critic, co-founded the International Sports Journalists' Association, served as personal pilot to Queen Elisabeth in the First World War, and from 1955 to 1965 presided over the Belgian Olympic Committee.