Yusra Mardini of the Refugee Olympic Team won her first heat with a time of 1:09.21 in the women’s 100m butterfly. With performances like these, refugees are backing the huge support they got from the crowd in the opening ceremony.
While almost every Refugee team athlete at the 2016 Rio Olympics has an interesting backstory, Yusra Mardini's is more extraordinary than most. She and her sister are responsible for helping to save the lives of 20 people, including their own, after jumping off their sinking boat into the Aegean Sea and pushing their boat to land.
Mardini was a talented swimmer in war-torn Damascus and professionally backed by the Syrian Olympic Committee. As unrest in the besieged country escalated, she would often find herself training in pools where roofs had been blown open by bombings. “Sometimes we couldn’t train because of the war,” she said. “And sometimes you would be swimming in pools where the roofs were [blown open] in three or four places.”
Damascus became increasingly unstable and Mardini and her sister Sarah eventually left Syria, travelling through Lebanon and Turkey before trying to reach Greece.
The boat she was travelling in, meant for six people, was carrying 20 people. As a result the motor failed mid-way and most on board could not swim. With no other alternative, Mardini, Sarah and two strong swimmers jumped into the sea and swam for three hours in open water to stop their boat from capsizing, eventually reaching Lesbos.
Mardini settled in Berlin, where she was put in touch with the Wasserfreunde Spandau 04 swimming club and taken on as a member. Quickly realising her potential, Coach Sven Spannekrebs began considering Mardini for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But her road to the Games turned out to be a much quicker path.
According to the Guardian, Syria has been monitoring her swimming career and asking for regular updates. The appearance of Mardini, who now lives in Berlin, was being touted as one of the most highly anticipated of the Games.
