For the first time in the long and storied history of the Olympics, a team comprises a group of athletes who don’t represent a specific country.
Last Friday at the opening ceremony of the Rio Games in Brazil, the Refugee Olympic Team marched into Maracana Stadium, taking part in the Parade of Nations, along with global titans the United States, China and Russia, among many other nations.
The refugee contingent was much smaller than those of the three superpowers, only 10 athletes entered under their flag, but were no less profound and significant in their presence. Although few sports fans know their names, Yolande Bukasa Mabika (judo), Yiech Pur Biel (track and field) and Yusra Mardini (swimming) are as courageous and deserving of Olympic glory as any athlete competing in Brazil.
All left their countries of origin, the Congo, South Sudan and Syria, respectively, to escape the horrific social, economic and political conditions that have torn their homelands apart and led to the killings and exodus of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them young children and babies.
The crisis each country is enduring is devastating and seemingly without end, driven by unforgiving and brutal military leaders, sociopathic dictators, barbaric terrorist groups and misguided rebel forces. Of the 10 refugee athletes, five are from South Sudan, two are from Syria, two are from the Congo and one is from Ethiopia. They have found sanctuary far away from their birthplaces in places such as Brazil, where Mabika calls home; Kenya, to where Biel escaped after living in a refugee camp for 10 years; and Germany, where 18-year-old Mardini now resides.
The circumstances they have overcome to make it to Rio is unimaginable for most. Winning a medal would be a remarkable achievement for any of the refugee athletes. But they already have won figurative gold, standing atop the podiums of perseverance and faith, countering dire political climates.
“I want to show the best possible image of refugees or Syrian people, or anyone who has suffered injustice in the world, and tell them to not lose hope,” 25-year-old swimmer Rani Anis said to the BBC. Anis, a member of the refugee team, fled Syria in 2015 and now lives in Belgium.
Here in the United States, as Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to spew nationalistic, bigoted, xenophobic rhetoric, implicitly suggesting his supporters should employ violence to achieve their means of stopping Hillary Clinton’s march to the presidency, emboldening those who have embraced ethnic and religious bias as hallmarks of their political ideology, athletes such as sabre fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad have at once gracefully and forcefully repelled their ignorance by actions more than words.
Monday, the 30-year-old Duke University graduate from Maplewood, N. ., became the first Muslim-American woman to compete on the United States Olympic Team while wearing a hijab. Despite being eliminated from individual women’s competition in her second bout—she will still compete in the women’s team sabre competition Aug. 13—her silent message penetrated stereotypes and labels.
Although the Olympics have long ago been grossly monetized and hijacked by multi-billion dollar corporations, Muhammad and the refugee team embody the essence of the Olympic ideal.