A small team of international refugee athletes will participate in the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this year, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach confirmed on Thursday.
“We want to draw the attention of the world to the problems of the refugees,” Bach told reporters while touring a refugee camp in Athens, Greece.
Five to 10 refugee athletes are expected to qualify, and they will compete under the Olympic flag, Bach said, echoing remarks he made in October last year at the UN.
Photo: AP
Last month, Pere Miro, the IOC’s deputy director general for relations with the Olympic movement, named three possible refugee competitors: a female Syrian swimmer now in Germany, a male Congolese judoka in Brazil and a female Iranian taekwondo fighter in Belgium.
Athletes have marched behind the Olympic flag on a number of occasions, usually because of geopolitical conflict. In 1992, athletes from Yugoslavia competed under the Olympic banner because of sanctions against the country over the war in the Balkans. Athletes from the new nations of East Timor in 2000 and South Sudan in 2012 competed under the flag because their formal Olympic committees had not yet been formed.
However, there has never been a team of refugees at an Olympic Games.
Greece has been a key landing spot for hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere over the past year. Thousands have died after boats have sunk, including at least 24 people on Thursday. The numbers have overwhelmed the authorities in Greece, and many refugees are being held in camps with poor conditions.
Bach said that a refugee athlete would carry the Olympic torch through a camp in Athens. The torch is traditionally lighted in Olympia, Greece, the site of the ancient Games. This year, the lighting is scheduled for April 21, with the torch arriving in Brazil for the relay on May 3.
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