Washington, DC – 12 August 2024 – The Paris Summer Olympics draw to a close with many individual and team achievements – including the first medal won by a member of the UN Refugee Team. Their participation in the Games marks another triumph of the Olympic spirit, even amid the conflict and challenges around the globe.
The competed in 12 sports under the UN flag as the EOR - Equipe Olympique des Refugies. They are natives of 11 countries now living in in the United States and 14 other countries that welcomed them as .
History records the Olympic Truce as the world’s first peace initiative, when nations paused fighting to focus on the Olympic Games. Secretary-General António Guterres called on nations to do that again at the outset of the Paris Games, and “silence the guns” to honor the Olympic ideal of “cooperation and loyal competition, instead of division and conflict.”
The UN Refugee Team is “a symbol of inclusion, of equality, of achievement,” Filippo Grandi, the , said. “It is a moment in which people who have often lost everything can gain back dignity, identity and give back to the communities hosting them,” he said. “They are not the objects of charity . . . [but] in their communities.”
The and her team’s members is a testament not only to their excellence as athletes, but to their resilience in the face of challenges that few competing in Paris face – challenges known too well by more than 43 million refugees worldwide. They are a subset of 120 million people now forcibly displaced – those driven from their homes and often from their countries.
“Keep on believing in yourself,” she said. “You can achieve whatever you put your mind to.” The . Ngamba’s has been celebrated by refugee athletes and others, with many regarding her as a hero and inspiration for both future refugees and athletes.
Kimia Alizadeh – who competed at the 2020 Olympics as a member of the UN Refugee Team – competed in taekwondo on Bulgaria’s team in Paris, winning bronze in the women’s 57kg category.
The UN Refugee Team offers a way for qualified athletes to continue competing. Without it, most would face significant hurdles, some impossible to overcome, to compete either for their native country or for the country that offered them refuge.
This year, that is the situation in which UN Refugee Team canoe sprinter Fernando Dayan Jorge Enríquez found himself. He won a gold medal on Cuba’s team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but left his country in 2022 and resettled in Florida Complex rules can strand athletes without a team: UNHCR’s registration of Enríquez as a refugee meant he could continue to pursue his Olympics dream.
Two others reached the quarterfinals; Saeid Fazloula in the men’s kayak 1,000m, and Saman Soltani in the women’s kayak 500m.
Another, (originally from South Sudan) came within a fraction of a second of a medal in the men’s 5,000-metre final on Saturday, finishing fourth.
Perina Lokure Nakang (originally from South Sudan) and Jamal Abdelmaji (originally from Sudan’s Darfur region) both ran personal bests in their races, the women’s 800m and men’s 10,000m respectively.
, a breaker from Afghanistan, was disqualified after grabbing headlines in a “free Afghan women” cape. She left the country as a teen when the Taliban took control.
贰苍谤í辩耻别锄&苍产蝉辫; near his home in the sport his father taught him at the age of 10. 贰苍谤í辩耻别锄&苍产蝉辫; of the 1000m men’s single canoe sprint, ending his dreams of another Olympic medal by just 10 seconds.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi at the opening ceremonies of the Paris Games. The award honors outstanding achievements in education, culture, development and peace through sport. , when ten athletes from four countries competed at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Paralympic Games
When the Paris Paralympics opens on 28 August, eight athletes and one guide runner will compete across six sports as the UN Refugee Paralympics team. They will lead the procession of Paralympians into the Opening Ceremony under the UN flag. Smaller contingents competed on .
Nyasha Mharakurwa, who represented Zimbabwe in wheelchair tennis at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, whose athletes he calls a “model for all of us. . . . [They are not just representing the forcibly displaced people worldwide, but the world’s 1.2 billion persons with disabilities,” he said. “No matter how difficult their circumstances, these athletes have found a way to compete at the .”
