On July 26, thirty-six athletes from eleven different countries making up the refugee team will parade under the Olympic flag for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled on the Seine. Their identities were revealed by the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, Thursday May 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland, headquarters of the body.
These twenty-three men and thirteen women were selected in the vast majority from among the seventy-three beneficiary athletes. a scholarship for Paris 2024, funded by the IOC, through its Olympic Foundation for Refugees and as part of the “Olympic Solidarity” program. To be eligible, athletes must be high-level competitors and be recognized as refugees in their host country by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Hailing from Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Iran, Eritrea, Cameroon, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Cuba, the members of this team are hosted by fifteen national Olympic committees. They will meet in Bayeux (Calvados) before the opening of the Olympic village for pre-training. Judo, cycling, athletics, taekwondo… The members of the team will compete in twelve individual sports. The IOC reserves for these disciplines “invitations” for refugee athletes.
The body has implemented this reception of athletes with refugee status since the Rio Games in 2016. At the end of 2015, at the end of a year marked by the global refugee crisis, including the conflict in Syria, Thomas Bach had announced to the United Nations General Assembly the creation of a specific Olympic team.
Ten athletes from four countries made up the first team at the Rio Games. For the 2021 Tokyo Games, the team included twenty-nine athletes from eleven countries. Many have become ambassadors and spokespersons for the cause, like cyclist Masomah Ali Zada. Born in Afghanistan and member of the refugee Olympic team in Tokyo, the latter will be head of mission for the team present in Paris this summer. “We hope that these refugees will be a source of inspiration for other refugees who have fled their country but who have not given up on their dreams,” she declared Thursday May 2.
For the first time within this team there will be an athlete who will not owe her presence to an invitation: the Cameroonian boxer Cindy Ngamba, a refugee in the United Kingdom, and three times English champion, qualified in the category less of 75 kg for the Olympic events. She will also constitute the main hope of a medal – the first – for the refugee team.
“An important display effect for the IOC”
By thus ensuring the visibility of the team, the IOC wishes to present a positive image of refugees and raise awareness of the role that sport can play in supporting them. According to the latest UNHCR figures, 108 million people have been forcibly displaced around the world at the end of 2022 due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations.
To date, the work of the Olympic Foundation for Refugees “has enabled nearly 400,000 young people to play sport in complete safety. More than 1,600 coaches have been trained in organizing sports sessions » and its programs supported young people in eleven countries on five continents”, according to the IOC.
Support for refugee athletes “is a display effect which is very important for the IOC”, explains Pascal Gillon, researcher specializing in the geopolitics of sport at the University of France-Comté, in Besançon (Doubs).
“This brings a spotlight to an issue, at costs that are low for it. He has the financial means to pay 70 scholarships. He will be able to present, during the opening ceremony, a team of refugees and say that he is concerned about this dimension. »
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This also allows the IOC to “remain the supreme authority in sport on an international scale”continues Mr. Gillon, who emphasizes that “the IOC was afraid that the UN would develop a sports agency like there is an agency that deals with health”.
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