What is the Refugee Olympic Team?

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Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit, including a link to today’s MapMaker Interactive map.

Discussion Ideas

This summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are the first to include a “Refugee Olympic Team” (ROT). What are refugees? Take a look at our encyclopedic entry for some help.
- Refugees are people who must leave their home area for their own safety or survival. A refugee’s home area could be a country, state, or region. People become refugees for many reasons, including war, oppression, natural disasters, and climate change.

Why can’t refugee athletes compete with delegations from their country of origin or host country?
- “[W]ith their refugee status, they are left without a home country or a National Olympic Committee (NOC) to represent,” says International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach.
  - Although never a refugee, Bach himself is a citizen of a country that no longer exists: He is a fencer who won a gold medal for West Germany in the men’s team foil competition at the 1976 Olympics.

Without a country to represent, what flag will they march behind at the opening and closing ceremonies? What anthem will play if a refugee athlete wins a medal?
- “Having no national team to belong to, having no flag to march behind, having no national anthem to be played, these refugee athletes will be welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag and with the Olympic anthem,” says Bach.
  - At the opening ceremonies, ROT’s flag-bearer was South Sudanese runner Rose Nathike Lokonyen.

Olympic qualifications are notorious for being very rigorous and regimented. How did the athletes of the ROT compete without such formal structures?
- The International Olympic Committee asked national committees to identify displaced people within their borders who were outstanding athletes. Final selection was based on athletic ability, personal circumstances, and official refugee status as conferred by the United Nations.
- Individual National Olympic Committees (NOCs) assumed responsibility for training athletes. The team itself is led by former Kenyan marathoner Tegla Loroupe, the most outstanding example of the “Olympic spirit” we’ve yet to encounter. Five ROT athletes are trained at her facility outside Nairobi, and she looks forward “to keep working with these refugees. I want to be their ambassador.” Learn more about Loroupe here—it’s a great, inspiring read.

The Geographical article says that IOC President Bach’s commitment to refugee athletes extends past the Refugee Olympic Team. How else is the IOC supporting refugee athletes?
- In April, Ibrahim al-Hussein, a Syrian swimmer, carried the Olympic Torch through the Eleonas refugee and migrant camp in Athens, Greece. Al-Hussein had his leg amputated after being hit by a bomb in 2012. “I am carrying the flame for myself, but also for Syrians, for refugees everywhere, for Greece, for sports,” he told reporters at the time. “I am sending this message to all migrating Syrians, but not only them or Iraqis or Afghans, anyone who has to migrate away from their country to go to Europe.”
- The IOC has established Olympic Solidarity, a multimillion-dollar fund that finances:
  - athletic equipment and training in refugee camps.
  - National Olympic Committee programs focusing on “athlete development, training of coaches and sports administrators, and promoting the Olympic ideals.”

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

Geographical: Symbols of hope: Refugees at the Olympics

National Geographic Education Blog