Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Last Thursday, the president of the International Olympic Committee announced the athletes selected for this year’s Refugee Olympic Team – the global team’s third games after their debut at Rio 2016. The chosen 36 athletes hail from 11 countries of origin; live in 15 host countries and represent 12 sports and a displaced population of over 100 million people. The athletes include an Iranian weightlifter, a Cameroonian boxer and an Ethiopian runner. Perhaps the team’s best known former member is Yusra Mardini, whose escape from Syria is the subject of the 2022 Netflix film The Swimmers. Yusra has now retired from professional swimming, but will be covering Paris 2024 as a Eurosport reporter. She has called on France to welcome more refugees – a long shot, after France in January passed what critics called “the most regressive [immigration] bill of the past 40 years” (Marine Le Pen called it an “ideological victory”).