MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty ImagesRefugee Olympic Team’s Yusra Mardini takes part in the Women’s 100m Butterfly heat during the swimming event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on August 6, 2016.
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Mardini, 19 years old and now residing in Germany, took first place in a 100-meter women’s butterfly heat in Rio, keeping her dream of medaling in the Olympics alive for at least a little bit longer. Their family home, located in a Damascus suburb, was destroyed in a bloody massacre at the dawn of the vicious Syrian civil war.
“Me and my sister were holding on to the boat with one and doing the breaststroke with the other hand and one leg”, she described.
The motor of their small dinghy boat (made to carry six people, but carrying 20) almost capsized. One team member, swimmer Yusra Mardini, fled Syria previous year with her sister.
After their three-hour marathon swim, they finally reached Lesbos, in Greece and then travelled on through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, facing several hurdles and passing refugee check points at each stage, to finally reach Germany.
According to a report in NDTV, the refugee Olympic team, consisting of 10 athletes, are participating as Independent Olympic athletes to show solidarity with the world’s refugees.
About two years ago, Mardini was swimming to save her life and others. “I could not open my eyes anymore, they were full of salt water”.
She will be competing in the women’s 100-metre butterfly and freestyle heats on Saturday and Wednesday.
The team’s athletes come from Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Everything was incredible”, Mardini said after her heat swim. “But this summer, the athletes are getting a chance to do something they love: They are competing in the Summer Olympics as the Refugee Olympic Team!“.
“The ceremony was really unbelievable and I really enjoyed it but I couldn’t stay because I had to race”, she said.
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“Everything was wonderful. It was the only thing I ever wanted, was to compete in the Olympics”, she said. Now, she’ll be competing against the world’s best swimmers-although she’ll be the only one for whom the Olympics are a low-stakes affair compared to her other experiences in the water.
