olympics


YUSRA MARDINI, 18, BORN IN SYRIA, 200-METRE FREESTYLE Thirty minutes


into an overcrowded Mediterranean Sea, their dinghy journey crossing 18-year-old in the Yusra


Mardini’s heart sank when the boat’s engine died. Along with her sister and another woman, the teen from Damascus, who represented Syria at the FINA World Swimming


Championships in 2012,


jumped into the water and started pushing the boat towards the Greek island of Lesvos. They were the only ones on board who could swim, Yusra told a Berlin press conference earlier this year, “I thought it would be a real shame if I drowned in the sea, because I am a swimmer,” she said.


Yusra continued her perilous journey to reach safety, arriving in Germany in September 2015.


Yusra captured the hearts of Olympic spectators around the globe. She won her women’s 100-metre butterfly heat, but


“IT WOULD BE A REAL


SHAME IF I DROWNED IN THE SEA.”


© UNHCR/Gordon Welters


it wasn’t fast enough to qualify for the semi-final. She also didn’t progress in the 100-metre freestyle. “I have only been back swimming for two years so we’re only now getting back to my levels of before. But I’m pleased,” she says.


YIECH PUR BIEL, 21, BORN IN SOUTH SUDAN, 800 METRES


Yiech Pur Biel only began running a little over a year ago in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where he fled from his home in Nasir, South Sudan, in 2005. It has been a long journey for the young man who had been living in the camp for 10 years. He was only 11 when he first reached Kakuma without his parents, who escaped to Ethiopia. Yiech hasn’t seen them since.


“Most of us face a lot of challenges,” says Yiech. “In the refugee camp, we have no facilities—even shoes we don’t have.”


Yiech, who ran in the 800-metre event, has trained with some of his heroes on the Kenyan athletics team and has made incredible gains in his times the last few months.


Competing in the 800 metres at Rio, Yiech says, will help him to become an ambassador for refugees everywhere. “We have a message to tell the world,” he says. “We have come as refugees, we have come as ambassadors for refugees, now we are here to show you that we can do


“WE HAVE COME AS AMBASSADORS FOR REFUGEES.”


© UNHCR/Benjamin Loyseau UNHCR / 13


everything other human beings can do, and also be part of a peace promotion around the world.”


Although he didn’t qualify for the semi-finals, Yiech says, “I only had eight months training, I know I can go much further now...”


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