Blood, Sweat And Tears: Extraordinary Stories Of Refugee-Athletes In Olympics

The history of humankind is a history of migration. Our ancestors over millennia have crossed seas and continents, sought refuge and settled down for generations, then raised anchors again. In a modern world ring-fenced by borders of nation-states, migration is often undertaken by unfortunate souls under extreme duress—to flee horrible persecution, extreme violence or the bleakest of poverty. Thus are normal, talented individuals uprooted and tagged as ‘refugees’. Thirty-five extraordinary athletes who answer to that call will add another dimension to the Tokyo Olympics and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Each has unending reserves of courage and perseverance to make it to the highest sporting arena. Olympics are the celebration of inclusion, and so these 35 athletes, who have suffered terrible blows, dodged killing fields and undertaken perilous journeys, will be part of Refugee teams. Six of them, with disabilities, are in an even more exclusive club.

Refugee para swimmer Abbas Karimi was born without arms in Kabul. Jibes and jeers were common since early boyhood. When he was 12, Abbas started kickboxing—insurance against getting bullied. As he got better, a vengeful Abbas left a few with bloody noses, but even then he knew it was a mistake. When he was 13, his brother built a 25-metre community swimming pool. The moment he first took a plunge, the water bec­ame the oasis of Abbas’ life. “I asked the lifeguard, ‘Do you think I can learn how to swim?’ He said, ‘Of course you can. There are people who don’t have arms and legs who swim.’ So, I put on a life jacket and didn’t drown. That day gave me a lot of hope.”

Abbas, who now dresses himself, drives a car and writes with his feet, immersed himself in the water joyously, much like a gambolling dolphin. “I believe God took my arms by mistake, but he gave me a talent in my feet,” he says. Abbas became the Afghan national champion in his maiden tournament, but his father was set on his being an Islamic cleric. With little future, as a disabled person, in a land torn by civil war, he left Afghanistan.

“My tribe, the Hazaras, are often targeted by the Taliban. There were a lot of bombs exploding in Kabul….,” he says. At 16, Abbas, with an elder brother, flew to Iran and began a three-day harrowing journey through the Zagros mountains. If he survived the extreme temperatures, he would be in Turkey. Smuggled in a truck and covered in plastic, in constant fear of the Iranian border police and chased by 20 wild dogs, that journey remains a maelstrom of coldness and hunger in his mind. After three harrowing days and nights, he ended up in a camp in Turkey for refugees and juvenile asylum-seekers.   

Four years in Turkey…four refugee camps, yet Abbas was singularly lucky to find swimming pools to train—a beacon of light he held on to steadfastly. The goal: to be a Paralympic champion. He won 15 medals in Turkey, including in two national tournaments, and was photographed with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But without a passport, Abbas was barred from international events.

In September 2015, former wrestling coach Mike Ives of the US was impressed by Abbas’s swimming skills in a Facebook video. He was also moved by Abbas’s appeal to the Afghan government to help him participate in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, the first time it was opened to refugees. Ives, who worked with the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR), helped Abbas resettle in Portland in 2016. Being in the US gave Abbas’s dreams a fillip—he won a silver in the world championship in Mexico, followed by a dip in form and performance. Abbas went to a top coach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to shave off those extra seconds that could lead to a medal in Tokyo. “When I make the pod­ium, I’m going to make a lot of refugees around the world happy. I’ll feel like I’m a lion, someone who fights hard and never gives up.”

For Abbas and displaced Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini, the swimming pool stands as a common, lived-in metaphor for survival. Among the most recognisable faces among refugee athletes, Yusra Mardini’s story pulsates with intrepidity. Tokyo 2020 will be her second Olympics. The 23-year-old is a powerful voice for displaced people and a captivating motivational speaker as the youngest-ever UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

Yusra fled war-ravaged Syria in 2015 and reached Berlin after an arduous journey—with sister Sarah, Yusra boarded a plane from Damascus to Lebanon and from there to Turkey, where they boarded a boat for Greece. On open waters, her swimming skills saved the lives of 20 refugees trying to cross the Aegean Sea in an overcrowded dingy. On the final stretch, the boat’s eng­ine shut down. Amidst desperate prayers and cries of the hapless passengers, Yusra and Sarah swam for three hours, steering the boat on to Grecian shores. The final journey to Germany was on foot, in buses, with the aid of human smugglers.

Since swimming in Rio 2016 as a refugee, Yusra has shared her story to millions. Her best-selling autobiography Butterfly: From Refugee to Olym­pian: My Story of Rescue, Hope And Triumph was published in May 2018. A biopic is also being planned by English director-producer Stephen Daldry.

“I tell my story because I want people to understand that sport saved my life,” says Yusra. “I always tell people that we are normal. We do not come from a country that is poor. That’s not true…. We have everything you have. I also want to remind everyone that refugees are still in the camps, and they really do need our help.”

Help for refugee athletes has started coming in from celebrity Olympians and there is an Indian involved too. Beijing 2008 gold medallist Abhinav Bindra has joined fellow shooter and three-time Olympic gold medallist Niccolo Campriani’s Make a Mark project. It relies on crowd-funding and donations, aiming to enable the next generation of refugees and forcibly displaced people compete in sport and embrace the Olympic spirit.

Luna Solomon and Afghan Mahdi Yovari have been selected for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team and Afghanistan National Olympic Committee team, res­pectively, in a breakthrough for the Make a Mark project. Both Luna and Mahdi will compete in the 10-metre air rifle event at Tokyo. Both have been coached by Italian Campriani.

Luna first arrived in Switzerland in 2015 after she was forced to flee war-torn Eritrea, where atrocities spiralled beyond control. Raised in Iran, Mahdi left his family as a teenager, seeking asylum in other countries and settled in Nyon, Switzerland, four years ago.

Like Abbas and Yusra, every member of the Refugee team has a riveting story to narrate but opening up the Olympics for them took some effort. At the United Nations General Assembly in October 2015, at the height of the global refugee crisis, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach anno­unced the creation of the Refugee Oly­mpic Team for the Rio Olympic Games.

Working with the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the IOC identified refugee athletes and through the Oly­mpic Solidarity programme provided them with necessary support and funding. Within a year, 10 athletes, originally from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were competing with 11,000 athletes in Rio, sending a message of hope to millions of refugees.

For the Refugee Olympic team for Tokyo 2020, Oly­mpic Soli­darity laid down conditions of participation and the selection process, in collaboration with UNHCR, national Olympic committees, sports federations and the Tokyo 2020 Org­a­nising Committee. The aim is not only to train refugee athletes for the Olym­pics, but also to continue their sporting careers and build their future.

“This will be a symbol of hope for all refugees in the world and will make the world better aware of the magnitude of this crisis. It is also a signal to the international community that refugees are our fellow human beings and an enrichment to society,” said Bach.

In Tokyo 2020, 29 athletes competing across 12 sports and from 13 host national Olympic committees will be part of the IOC Refugee Olympic team. The athletes, mainly from strife-torn nations like Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq and Venezuela, were sel­ected from among the refugee athletes currently supported by the IOC through the Olympic scholarships for Refugee Athletes programme.

The selection of the team was based on each athlete’s sporting performance and their refugee status, as confirmed by the UNHCR. Personal backgrounds, as well as a balanced representation in terms of sport, gender and region, were also considered. The team will compete under the Olympic flag.

At the opening ceremony on July 23, they will enter the stadium in second position, immediately after Greece, sending a strong message of inclusion, sending a global message of resilience and human spirit. Like all teams at the Olympic Games, the IOC Refugee Olympic team will have its own entourage, staffed by personnel who would cater to all the required technical needs of the athletes. Olympian and former marathon world record-holder Tegla Loroupe will be the team’s chef de mission, reprising her role from the Rio Olympic Games.

Having survived conflict, persecution and the relentless anxiety of exile, refugee athletes are already winners in life. Now, they have the chance to excel as sportspersons on a world stage. Sports, as they rightly say, is a great leveller. And upon what apposite stage can you celebrate it but at the Olympics?

(This appeared in the print edition as "Olympia’s Children")

(Photos, inputs courtesy IOC)