Yusra Mardini, to take one example, is an 18-year-old Syrian woman who had to swim for her life late last year when the overloaded dinghy taking her and 22 other refugees to Greece began to sink.
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Mardini, who will compete in the 100-metre freestyle, is among 10 athletes in the refugee team which will march behind the Olympic flag at Friday’s opening ceremony in Brazil. With her sister’s help, Mardini helped swim 18 refugees to safety a year ago when a boat they were traveling in had its motor broke down. “Then after the Games of Rio this is not the end for everything”. “I had one hand with the rope attached to the boat as I moved my two legs and one arm”. They jumped off the sinking dinghy and swam for three hours helping to save the lives of 20 people. Your body is nearly like … done.
Speaking at a press conference in Rio alongside the nine other refugee athletes with whom she will march under the International Olympic Committee flag at the opening ceremony on Friday, Mardini said: “A lot of things have happened in our lives that were really bad but you must remember life will not stop for you”.
“I want them to not give up”, Mardini said.
Now living in Germany, life is much better.
She added, “In Syria I worked in a swimming pool to watch people not drowning, so if I let anyone drown or die I would not forgive myself”.
Yusra had represented Syria in the 2012 FINA World Swimming Championships. She was professionally backed by the Syrian Olympic Committee.
“Sometimes we couldn’t train because of the war”. “You could see, like, the roof…three or four places are open”. The appearance of Mardini, who now lives in Berlin, was being touted as one of the most highly anticipated of the Games.
According to the Guardian, Syria has been monitoring her swimming career and asking for regular updates. “But I’m pleased”, she said.
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“By rallying behind the refugee athletes competing in the Olympics, we are telling refugees around the world that they are welcome and they are not alone”, Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA’s interim executive director, said in a statement earlier this week.
