Why Refugee Olympic Team is heart and soul of Rio Games
Why Refugee Olympic Team is heart and soul of Rio Games: RIO DE JANEIRO – Seeing the word “ROT” underneath the Olympic rings conjures every criticism, cynicism and castigation of the International Olympic Committee’s avarice and irresponsibility, which have flooded the undercurrent of the Games for decades.
But we’re not about to talk about that kind of “rot.”
On these black warm-up suits, being worn by 10 athletes at the Rio Games, “ROT” is actually an acronym. And while the toxicity of its organizers may have tarnished the Olympics in the eyes of the world, it’s these athletes that exist to redeem them, albeit for a moment.
That touchy-feely prattle about the world coming together? About the Olympic Spirit ™, about the triumphs that make us stare with awe at our televisions every four years at human accomplishment?
The athletes in those “R.O.T.” jumpsuits embody all of it.
“R.O.T.”
Refugee Olympic Team.
“We don’t have the same language. We’re all from different countries. But the Olympic flag united us together, and now we are representing 60 million [people] around the world,” said swimmer and Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini. “We want to show everyone that we can do anything. Good athletes. Good people.”
You’ve no doubt heard Mardini’s story by now. She’s an 18-year-old Syrian refugee who fled to Germany on an absolutely harrowing journey, swimming alongside a dinghy for three-and-a-half hours in order to keep it on course and ensure it didn’t sink under the weight of the 20 refugees it carried.
“I swam for my life when the boat sank. Without swimming, I don’t think I survive. I don’t think I rise to this level at the Olympic Games,” she said.
Mardini has quickly become the fresh face of the Refugee Team, not only because of her fluency in English but because of her normalcy: One moment she’s a teenager marveling at the chance to meet Rafael Nadal in the Olympic Village, and the next she’s making impassioned statements about her teammates’ plight.
“I want [Olympic fans] to think that refugees are normal humans that had to leave their homelands. Not because they wanted to, not because they wanted to be refugees or run away or have drama in their lives. They had to leave. To get a new life. Get a better life,” she said.
But hers is only one story of many. Her sacrifice, one of many.
There’s also:
* Yonas Kinde, the distance runner who feared for his life in Ethiopia and eventually fled to Luxembourg, where he drives a cab when he’s not, you know, in the Rio Olympics.
* James Chiengjiek, who fled South Sudan at age 13 to avoid being forced into service as a child solider, and will run the 400 meters.
* Popole Misenga, whose mother was murdered when he was a child in Democratic Republic of Congo, who will compete in Judo.
* Yolande Mabika, also of the Congo, who sought asylum with Misenga when the two participated in the 2013 World Judo Championship in Brazil. Her coaches took their money and passports. She escaped their hotel and wandered for two days before finding a community of Congolese immigrants, telling them that her coaches would starve her and lock her in a cage when she didn’t perform well. She went back and rescued Misenga from the same hotel, and they were granted refugee status in 2014.
Mabika and Misenga sat next to each other as the Refugee Team held a press conference in Rio this week. Her hair was a bright blonde, prompting one journalist to ask if that was symbolic.
“I changed my hair style, because to build a new life – to have a new story, a new house, a new place – I have to change everything,” she said. “Including the color of my hair.”
Source : http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-refugee-olympic-team-is-heart-and-soul-of-rio-games-120304956.html?nhp=1
