The International Olympic Committee (IOC) yesterday unveiled the largest-ever Refugee Olympic Team for Paris 2024, where it hopes to win a medal for the first time.
The Refugee team will take part in its third Games, having been first introduced at Rio 2016 and continued at Tokyo 2020.
The IOC funded 74 refugee scholarships in the lead-up to Paris, with a 36-athletes team set to compete — the inaugural Rio 2016 had 10 athletes, growing to a squad of 29 at Tokyo 2020.
The athletes will compete across 12 sports and hail from 11 countries, including 14 from Iran, and five each from Afghanistan and Syria.
According to a report by Reuters, the team was announced on a livestream from Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, during which IOC president Thomas Bach read out each name, followed by a live-shot of each athlete. Many reacted with a fist pump, a smile or tears of joy.
The team will be led by Chef de Mission Masomah Ali Zada, who competed for the Refugee team at Tokyo 2020 in road cycling.
A new emblem for the team was also revealed on Thursday, which the athletes will use during the opening ceremony in Paris. The team previously competed under the logo of the Olympic rings.
“You are an enrichment to our Olympic Community, and to our societies,” Bach told the athletes. “With your participation in the Olympic Games, you will demonstrate the human potential of resilience and excellence.
“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 around the world aware of the magnitude of the refugee crisis.”
The news comes a day after Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, who has competed at two Olympic Games as a refugee athlete in the 1,500 metres, was suspended for testing positive for the banned drug Trimetazidine (TMZ).
She is the third refugee athlete in the past few months to fall foul of the doping authorities and faces a four-year ban.
At a news conference shortly after the announcement, the IOC’s NOC relations director James Macleod said: “Of course, we’re disappointed. Any refugee athlete has the same rights and responsibilities as any athlete in the world and has to follow the rules, whether those be the rules on the field of play, the rules relating to anti-doping, they have to be followed.
“What we have been doing, however, has been working very closely with international federations to make sure that all of the athletes in the program have had a very good education around anti-doping matters, but also are tested on a regular basis, and we’ll make sure there are regular tests happening in the run up to the games as well.”