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| credit: ONU Brasil |
Since the modern Olympics began in 1896, over 200 national teams have vied for glory at the Summer and Winter Games. Now, for the first time, a team of refugees will compete as well.
The International Olympic Committee today announced the selection of 10 refugees who will compete this August in Rio de Janeiro, forming the first-ever Refugee Olympic Athletes team. They include two Syrian swimmers, two judokas from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a marathoner from Ethiopia and five middle-distance runners from South Sudan.
The initiative comes at a time when more people than ever – 59.5 million at last count – are being forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and persecution.
And among them: Yusra Mardini, born in 1998.
Yusra Mardini and her sister Sarah were among Syria’s brightest swimming stars until the war interrupted their progress and they fled, eventually arriving in Germany.
Together with about 20 other people, she got on a boat.
Thirty minutes into their journey, however, the motor stopped and the boat, carrying 20 people rather than the six or seven it was intended for, threatened to capsize.
Yusra, Sarah and another woman got into the water, pushing and pulling the dinghy until they reached the shore. They were the only ones on board who could swim.
“I thought it would be a real shame if I drowned in the sea, because I am a swimmer,” she told a Berlin press conference on Friday.
She has hated the open sea ever since.
