Competing at the Paris Olympics is an incredible feat, made even more difficult for some athletes who have been forced to leave their home countries and become refugees. These athletes will be able to compete at the 2024 Games as part of the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Team.
Muna Dahouk, a Syrian refugee now living in the Netherlands, says she wants to use her platform as a refugee athlete to break stereotypes and challenge misconceptions about refugees.
Dahouk fled Syria in 2019 and when she arrived in the Netherlands, she says competing in judo was the last thing on her mind. But she eventually returned and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. She says her fellow refugee athletes “understand each other and are one” because they all shared the same pain of fleeing their country. Now, they all want to be an example of hope for other refugees around the world.
“I will represent refugees around the world, to show people what refugees can do. We are not weak people. We can be athletes, we can be students, we can be anything we want to be,” Dahouk told CBS News.
What does CIO mean?
The IOC, or International Olympic Committee, is the non-profit international organization behind the Games.
What is the IOC Refugee Olympic Team?
The Refugee Olympic Team for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics consists of 37 athletes 11 different countries The team will compete in 12 sports. The IOC created the team to ensure that people displaced from their home countries have access to and the funding they need to compete in high-performance sports. The team will compete under the acronym EOR, based on the French name Équipe Olympique des Réfugiés.
Who is on the IOC refugee team for the 2024 Summer Olympics?
The team represents more than 100 million displaced people around the world. The criteria for joining the team were each athlete’s athletic achievements and their refugee status, verified by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. UNHCR defines a refugee as a person “who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of origin because of a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”
The majority of the athletes were selected under the Refugee Athlete Scholarship Programme, funded by the Olympic Solidarity Initiative and managed by the Olympic Foundation for Refugees. 37 athletes selected The Tokyo Olympics are being hosted by the National Olympic Committees of Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. They will compete in athletics, badminton, boxing, breaking, canoeing, cycling, judo, sport shooting, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling. This number is more than the 29 refugee athletes who competed in Tokyo. Here are the competitors, as listed on the Olympic website:
- Adnan Khankan, judo
- Alaa Maso, swimming
- Amir Ansari, cyclist
- Amir Rezanejad Hassanjani, canoe slalom
- Arabic Sibghatullah, judo
- Cindy Ngamba, boxing
- Dina Pouryones Langeroudi, taekwondo
- Dorian Keletela, athletics
- Dorsa Yavarivafa, badminton
- Eyeru Gebru, cyclist
- Farida Abaroge, athletics
- Farzad Mansouri, taekwondo
- Fernando Dayan Jorge Enriquez, canoe sprint
- Francisco Edilio Centeno Nieves, filming
- Hadi Tiranvalipour, taekwondo
- Iman Mahdavi, struggle
- Jamal Abdelmaji, athletics
- Jamal Valizadeh, Greco-Roman wrestling
- Kasra Mehdipournejad, taekwondo
- Luna Solomon, filming
- Mahboubeh Barbari Yharfi, judo
- Manizha Talash, breakup
- Morning Balsini, swimming
- Mohammad Amin Alsalami, athletics
- Mohammed Rashnonezhad, judo
- Muna Dahouk, judo
- Musa Suliman, athletics
- Nigara Shaheen, judo
- Omid Ahmadisafa, boxer
- Perina Lokure Nakang, athletics
- Ramiro Mora, weightlifting
- Saeid Fazloula, canoe sprint
- Saman Soltani, canoe sprint
- Tachlowini Gabriyesos, athletics
- Yahya Al Ghotany, taekwondo
- Yekta Jamali Galeh, weightlifting
When did the IOC create the refugee team?
In 2015, in the wake of the global refugee crisis, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach announced the creation of the Refugee Olympic Team at the United Nations General Assembly. The Rio 2016 Olympic Games were the first to feature a refugee team. Ten athletes from Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo marched in the Opening Ceremony under the Olympic flag, just ahead of host country Brazil.
This year, for the first time, the Refugee Olympic Team will compete under its own emblem, consisting of a heart surrounded by arrows of different colours, meant to represent the sense of belonging of the 100 million people who all share the story of displacement.
How are athletes supported?
The Refugee Olympic Team is funded by the Olympic Solidarity Initiative, which provides financial support to National Olympic Committees around the world. National Olympic Committees identify refugee athletes living in their countries and provide funding for their training, preparation and competition. Each of these programmes is managed by the Olympic Refugee Foundation.
Masomah Ali Zada, Chef de Mission of the Refugee Olympic Team, who competed for the refugee team in Tokyo, welcomed the athletes at the team announcement, saying: “With all the challenges you have faced, you now have the chance to inspire a new generation, to represent something bigger than yourselves and to show the world what refugees are capable of.”
Creating access to sport for refugees
In addition to supporting elite athletes on their journey to the Olympic Games, the Olympic Refugee Foundation runs programmes around the world to provide displaced communities with access to safe sport. Since its inception in 2017, it has provided nearly 400,000 people with access to sport and 1,600 coaches with training.
The program, based in Bangladesh, focuses on the Kurigram district, a flood-prone region in the north of the country, as well as slums in the capital Dhaka, where many residents have been displaced by climate disasters. The program works with local nonprofits to find playgrounds and coaches to provide access to sports.
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