The second boat out of the 94 in the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics flew under a flag with the five Olympic circles, rather than a country flag. The 37 athletes on board are there as the Olympic refugee team, representing 11 different countries of origin and competing in 12 different sports. U.K.-based boxer Cindy Ngamba and Yahya Al Ghotany, who practices taekwondo in Jordan’s Azraq Refugee Camp, were the team’s flag bearers.
The first Refugee Olympic Team participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics with 10 members, the second team of 29 participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the fourth team will participate in the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told The Associated Press in an interview on Sunday that the team is “a symbol of inclusion, of equality, of achievement for a large community around the world of refugees and displaced people.”
Who is on it?
This year’s team of athletes is led by a 2020 Tokyo Games refugee athlete, Masomah Ali Zada, who competed in road cycling. In Paris, she will lead the largest team yet as its chief of mission and spokesperson. “In Tokyo, we just missed out on a medal. I’m confident that this time we can demonstrate to the world what refugees are capable of — with an Olympic medal,” said Masomah.
One of the athletes she is cheering on is Perina Lokure Nakang. She was just 7 years old when she fled war in South Sudan to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya. Four years ago, she began to run for sport. Her first run was 9 miles along the road near her refugee camp. Now 21, she will be running in the 800-meter, like Athing Mu, the Olympic champion of South Sudanese descent, who is one of her inspirations. Nakang is the only refugee athlete currently based in Africa.
Nakang follows in the footsteps of Yiech Pur Biel, also South Sudanese, who competed in the 2016 Rio Games. Biel, an International Olympic Committee member, as well as the first refugee fellow at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, “ran for his life” the first time he ran. When he was 20, he entered a running competition and placed third in the 10K — running barefoot. He didn’t get his first pair of shoes until nine months before the Rio Olympics. He will be among those handing out medals in Paris.
Another athlete competing in Paris is Cindy Ngamba, originally from Cameroon. She moved to England when she was 11 and found a home in the boxing arena. Today, she became the first member of the 2024 Refugee Olympic Team to reach the quarter-final stage at the Paris Olympics after a 3-2 split decision win over 2022 world champion Tammara Thibeault of Canada. The possibility of a first medal for refugee athletes feels within reach to Ngamba. She is hoping to make history.
“I’m going to be the first ever refugee to make it out there,” The Associated Press reported. “There’s a lot of pressure out there. I am human, I have emotion, and I’m not going to hide about that … but I never let pressure bring me down. I’ve gone through so many obstacles in life, just like millions of refugees.”
This is an excerpt of a longer article I wrote for the Deseret News.
