(Lausanne) Thirty-six athletes from eleven countries will make up the refugee Olympic team at the Paris Olympics, in the hope of bringing its first medal to this entity without equivalent in the sporting world, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday. (IOC).
Led by Afghan cyclist Masomah Ali Zada, who studies civil engineering in Lille and was already participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, these 23 men and 13 women will parade on the Seine just behind Greece, during the opening ceremony on the 26 July, in front of all the other delegations.
“This will send a message of hope to the more than 100 million displaced people around the world. At the same time, you will make billions of people aware of the scale of the refugee crisis,” IOC boss Thomas Bach told them by videoconference.
Chosen from among the 73 refugees receiving an Olympic scholarship to prepare for the Paris Olympics, these athletes were selected “above all on sporting performance”, but also to ensure “a balanced representation” of sports, genders and countries of origin. , according to the IOC.
Coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Cuba and Venezuela, they live in fifteen different countries – the United States, Canada, Mexico, Kenya, Jordan, Israel and nine European countries.
This delegation, now equipped with its own emblem – a circle of arrows symbolizing the “common experience” of their journeys – will compete in 12 sports, from judo to athletics, swimming, taekwondo, canoeing, wrestling. and shooting.
“For the first time” since the creation of the refugee Olympic team, before the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, “one of the members qualified by herself” without receiving an invitation, underlined Masomah Ali Zada during a press briefing.
Boxer Cindy Ngamba, a Cameroonian refugee in the United Kingdom – due to the criminal repression of homosexuality in her country of birth – will therefore represent the main hope of a first medal for the refugee team: triple champion of England in three different weight categories, she qualified in -75 kg
Those selected will gather before the Games for a training camp in Bayeux, as they did in Doha before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The IOC announced the creation of an Olympic refugee team in 2015, a year marked by the displacement of millions of people – linked in particular to the war in Syria: absent from the Winter Games, this delegation presented 10 athletes at the Olympics. 2016 in Rio, in three disciplines, and 29 at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, in 12 disciplines.