Also, a group of five refugee coaches and five other non-athlete refugee officials will participate in the Rio games, which, according to the International Olympic Committee, will aid in shining a “spotlight on the world refugee crisis”. The two Syrian members of the team will undoubtedly be cheered on by over four million fellow refugees from their country and the 7.6 million who are displaced within their former home.
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Yusra Mardini, Syria, 200m butterfly swimmer.
Not long after arriving in Germany in September 2015, she started training with a club in Berlin, Wasserfreunde Spandau 04. And the refugee team are filing through in the same way that other people are filing through, you see?
Yolande Mabika, a Congolese refugee and judoka, says she was “shaking” when she received word she’d made the Olympics. Misenga’s mother was murdered during the melee; Mabika is unaware if any of her family survived.
A dream that seemed like a distant shot when he and Mabika first came to Rio to compete in the World Judo Championship in 2013.
The plan was first announced by the International Olympic Committee at the United Nations last October amid the influx of migrants and refugees from armed conflicts in Syria, Africa, South Asia and other regions.
Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, South Sudan, 1,500m runner.
Yiech Pur Biel, South Sudan, 800m runner.
Mardini and her older sister Sarah arrived in Germany one year ago after enduring a unsafe journey which involved swimming alongside their boat from Turkey to Greece because the vessel was taking on water. Lokoro works on a ranch when not training, but ten years ago he was a child that found refuge from the South Sudan civil war in Kenya with his mother.
The Washington Post reported the Associated Press as saying that when asked how she felt about being picked as a refugee team member, Mardini proclaimed, “I can’t describe how happy I am”. He now lives and trains there.
First, a Syrian refugee who was a sportsman before losing part of his leg in a bombing carried the Olympic flame through an Athens refugee camp.
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Through joint projects, the organizations have supported youth programmes and sporting activities in at least 20 countries, rehabilitated sporting fields in several refugee camps, and provided sports kits to refugee youth, the United Nations agency noted.
