• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has assembled its largest refugee team to date for the 2024 Paris Games, with 37 athletes.
• The IOC Refugee Olympic Team represents more than 100 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.
• The athletes, from 11 countries including Syria, Sudan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Iran and Afghanistan, will compete across 12 sports in Paris, the third time such a team has been formed for the Summer Olympics.
• The IOC unveiled its first refugee team for the Rio 2016 Games with 10 athletes to raise awareness of the issue as hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into Europe from the Middle East and elsewhere escaping conflict and poverty.
• The team that competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was already almost three times bigger than the Rio team, with 29 athletes.
• But the team in Paris is the largest while also having its own emblem.
• The IOC Executive Board (EB) selected the Refugee Olympic Team for Paris 2024. To be eligible, athletes must be elite competitors in their respective sport and be refugees in their host country, recognised by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Balanced representation in terms of sport, gender and regions was also taken into consideration.
• Boxer Cindy Ngamba and taekwondo athlete Yahya Al Ghotany were the flag bearers for the team during the opening ceremony on July 26.
• Ngamba was born in Cameroon and moved to the United Kingdom when she was 11 and Ghotany left Syria with his family as a child following the outbreak of war. Both athletes received Refugee Athlete Scholarships funded by the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity initiative.
• UNHCR said the participation of refugees in the Olympic Games demonstrates their resilience and excellence, serving as a symbol of hope and inclusion.
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