“In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
The Olympic Games have always been a treasure trove of stories that are both heart-wrenching and heart-warming at the same time. Stories that reflect the agony, ecstasy, guts, glory, inspiration and perspiration of some of the greatest people to have graced our planet.
The victory of Jesse Owens and the entire human race against the Third Reich. The wizardry and skill of Dhyan Chand. The rags to riches story of the “Czech Locomotive” Emil Zatopek. The “Perfect Ten” of Nadia Comanecci. The rise of the Usain Bolt phenomenon.
The 2016 Rio Olympics are just a few hours away, and we already have some extraordinary tales being spun around the Games. The journey of Lohaynny Vicente from the favelas of Rio De Janeiro to being the darling of a nation is one. The story of the Luik sisters, the Marathon triplets from Estonia, is one too. The leap of faith by Dipa Karmakar to perform a Produnova – a gymnastic feat where the difference between glory and death is only a few centimetres away – is yet another.
However, the trials and tribulations faced by 10 athletes from different but equally troubled parts of the globe might just be the most heart-rending, and yet the most uplifting, among them all.
Rami Anis. Yonas Kinde. Rose Lokonyen. James Cheingjiek. Popole Misenga. Yiech Pur Biel. Yolande Mabika. Paulo Lokoro. Anjelina Lohalith. Yusra Mardini. Together, they form the Team of Refugee Olympic Athletes (ROA). Together, they compete against the rest of the world under the Olympic Flag. Together, they provide a beacon of hope for refugees around the world in these trying times.
These are men and women who gave up life as they knew it, fled to a more peaceful world and yet, never gave up what they loved doing the most. Men and women who ran, swam and fought their way in order to fulfil their dream – a dream that burns as bright as the hallowed Olympic torch. “I want to show that refugees can do important things. I will win a medal, and will dedicate it to all the refugees,” said Popole Misenga, a judoka who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo for Brazil, where he sought political asylum.
The stories of Misenga and his fellow brethren stand testimony to their courage and iron clad will power at a time when turbulence and turmoil have become commonplace across the world. Indeed, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi so succinctly put it, “Their participation in the Olympics is a tribute to the courage and perseverance of all refugees in overcoming adversity and building a better future for themselves and their families.”
Never have the words of the great Baron Pierre De Coubertin, the Father of the Modern Olympic Games, resonated more forcefully than now – “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well”. And irrespective of whether these men and women can conquer their competitors, they have already conquered the biggest nemesis of them all – fear.
They hail from different parts of the globe. Yonas Kinde, the veteran marathon man, fled his troubled home of Ethiopia to the more serene confines of Luxembourg, where he takes French classes and drives a cab while undergoing relentless training. Rami Anis and Yusra Mardini, the two Syrian swimmers, fled to Belgium and Germany respectively, with the latter paddling her boat filled with fellow refugees to the Greek island of Lesvos. And Yolande Mabika is the other half of the judoka duo who fled to Brazil from the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with Popole Misenga.
The other five of the 10 athletes hail from the world’s youngest country, South Sudan. The nation that has seen things go from bad to worse since its inception, saw its most promising athletes flee southeast, to Kenya.
“It is very severe in South Sudan. Not many people can actually afford to risk their lives staying there,” says Simon Kiir Kuany, a South Sudanese UNESCO MGIEP official, speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda. Kuany goes on to describe the current political crisis in the infant nation and how the plight of the civilians involved mirrors the Second Sudanese Civil War, which went on for more than two decades – from 1983 to 2005.
Much like Lohalith, Chiengjiek, Biel, Lokoro and Lokonyen, most of the people fled to Kenya, Kuany recounts. The rest flee to neighbouring states like Uganda or to nations like the United States and Australia, with the support and opportunities provided by the United Nations.
The story of the Sudanese people is even more heartbreaking because a lot of them had returned to their homeland just a few years ago, rejoicing in their newfound freedom and peace. “Legally, after independence (in 2011), the South Sudanese refugees were not supposed to be in neighbouring countries anymore. There was peace then and repatriation started happening, with the South Sudanese going back in huge numbers,” says Kuany.
Things however took a turn for the worse; in a cruel twist of fate, the very people who had joyously returned home, soon saw their nation embroiled in yet another war. “The warlords and the power hungry politicians took the country back to war again in 2013. And that caused another migration of the South Sudanese to the neighbouring countries,” Kuany recollects. One among the many people caught in this crossfire, was the promising long distance (1,500m) runner Paulo Amotun Lokoro.
From herding his family’s cattle back home to being a refugee among the thousands that flooded the Kenyan refugee camps of Dadaab and Kakuma (which alone hosts 185,000 people), Lokoro has come a long way. His goal is short and simple, yet not lacking in ambition one bit – “I want to be world champion”. He certainly has the right mentor to achieve his dream in Tegla Loroupe, the living legend of long distance running. A world record holder in the 20km, 25km and 30km categories, the Kenyan, who also runs the Tegla Loroupe Foundation, can rightly expect her protégé to announce himself to the world in the Land of the Redeemer.
Lokoro isn’t the only one training in Kenya though. Kuany explains that one of the most promising middle distance runners in the world today, Yiech Pur Biel, has also been training in Kenya.
Only 21 years old, Biel has already encountered more trying circumstances than most people face in their entire lifetime. An aspiring footballer – after all he hails from the land of Al-Hilal and Al-Ahly – he gave up the beautiful game for running because it offered him “greater control over his own destiny”. Another beneficiary of the Tegla Loroupe Foundation, the former Kakuma refugee will be gunning for glory in Rio.
“After the peace agreement between North Sudan and South Sudan in 2005, there was calm; there was no war anymore. But some people were still staying back (away from Sudan) because they found it much safer, and they had their basic necessities taken care of,” says Kuany. One of those who stayed back was Biel’s fellow 800m runner, James Nyang Chiengjiek.
Fleeing the country in 2001 after an incident eerily reminiscent of the scenes shown in the Sierra Leone based film Blood Diamond, Chiengjiek had no other choice but to escape from rebels who were forcibly recruiting child soldiers. He never went back home again. Today, he’s one of the few promising athletes to have made it big from the Kakuma refugee camp, aided by the shining light of all these aspiring sportsmen – the Tegla Loroupe Foundation.
In the same year that Cheingjiek fled home, a tender six-year-old also fled her home, as war ravaged her village. Anjelina Nadai Lohalith hasn’t seen or spoken to her family ever since. The 1500m runner still remembers the atrocities of war she witnessed as a child, stoically recounting that “everything was destroyed” in her homeland.
An inmate of the Kakuma refugee camp too, Lohalith trained by running up the rugged terrains of the nearby Ngong hills, famous for its scenic locations featured in Out of Africa. One among the four women athletes in the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team, Lohalith has a very poignant reason to go the distance in Rio – so that she can build a home for her family.
Rose Nathike Lokonyen, the fifth and final athlete from South Sudan, wears a vest sporting neon yellow, green and black colours while training – immediately reminding you of that great man, Usain Bolt. The 23-year-old, who will compete in the 800m category in Rio, fled her homeland with her siblings for Kakuma, that giant home of thousands of desperate people, back in 2003.
The Tegla Loroupe Foundation then changed Lokonyen’s life in 2015 by spotting her potential. A year on, she’s going to be a part of a phenomenal bunch of athletes making history. It has been a meteoric rise, to say the very least.
“I’m very pleased that they are in Rio. It’s good to see my South Sudanese fellows there. They’ve been training hard in Kenya. And it is not just the South Sudanese refugees, but even those coming from Syria. All you will ever dream of is for an opportunity to make something out of your lives. And that’s the same thing the refugees want – an opportunity.
“They take all the risks; whether it is crossing seas or trekking mountains to seek safety in another country,” adds Kuany, referring not just to his South Sudanese compatriots, but also to the two unbelievably brave athletes from the land of Syria.
Syria. The land where half of the people – 11 million to be precise – have either been killed, or have had to flee. The country where civil wars and bombings have become a part of everyday reality. In the midst of all this tragedy are millions of refugees fleeing to various regions, including Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey et cetera.
Thousands of others are trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece. It is telling that these men and women find Greece, a country steeped in crisis itself, to be a safe haven. And it was in the lands of Turkey and Greece that the dreams of two swimmers, who swam against the tide their whole lives, finally came to fruition.
The Battle of Aleppo, the land also called the “Stalingrad of Syria”, killed thousands of people, and forced a further hundred thousand people (according to conservative estimates) to flee the historical Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is in dire straits today. It was in Aleppo that a 14-year-old for whom “swimming was life” grew up.
When he fled the nation for Turkey as a teenager, little would Rami Anis have thought that he’d be here one day, competing on the biggest stage of them all under the aegis of the Olympic Flag. Today, he’s supported by Belgium, the nation he later travelled to on an inflatable dinghy from Turkey. From honing his skills alone in the pool of Istanbul’s legendary Galatasaray Sports Club to being given an opportunity to provide joy to millions of his countrymen, life has been an absolute rollercoaster ride for Anis.
Even though Aleppo saw the most ruin, Damascus, the capital of Syria, wasn’t spared from the horrors of war. With the repercussions of the bloody and terrifying Battle of Damascus being felt to this day, refugees from the city are desperate for a chance to escape, unintentionally effecting a mass exodus. One of the escapers was Yusra Mardini, the celebrated swimmer who had represented the nation at the FINA Aquatics World Championships in 2012. Fleeing the nation had been a harrowing journey for Yusra and her sister Sarah as they first vanished into Beirut in Lebanon and then scampered to Izmir in Turkey.
Just like Anis, Yusra wanted to travel westward too, and so got into a dinghy with her sister and many other hapless refugees. However, the dinghy soon capsized and she finally had to do what she does best to survive – Yusra Mardini had to swim for her life. As she half swam and half pushed the dinghy to safety, reaching the Lesvos island in Greece, her only fear was drowning in the sea.
“I thought it would be a real shame if I drowned in the sea, because I am a swimmer,” she later said in a Berlin press conference. A year hence, the swimmer who now trains in Germany is gearing up for Rio, where she’ll meet her fellow refugee teammates from Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. It is going to be the swim of her life.
While talking about the people escaping from South Sudan, Kuany mentioned that some of the refugees flee to the nearby land of Ethiopia in the east. However, one of the protagonists of this story had to escape from Ethiopia too, to realize his dreams. The grand old man of the Refugee Olympic Team, 36-year-old Yonas Kinde, has had a marathon career in every sense of the word.
“It is impossible for me to live there,” Kinde has been quoted saying about the condition in Ethiopia. He fled the country at the age of 32 in 2012. Needless to say, Kinde had his reasons.
According to the Human Rights Watch World Report of 2012, “Ethiopian authorities continue to severely restrict basic rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Hundreds of Ethiopians in 2011 were arbitrarily arrested and detained and remain at risk of torture and ill-treatment.”
Kinde left the nation that year for Luxembourg, where he is now trained by Yves Goldi. Undergoing rigorous double sessions per day, Kinde is literally running his socks off. For he is finally about to make his debut on the biggest stage of them all.
The wait has been long. And it certainly has been worth every drop of blood, sweat and tear that went into it.
2,500 kilometres south-west of Ethiopia, Popole Misenga was a troubled man. With his homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, ravaged by the Second Congo War – the repercussions of which have cast a pall of gloom on the nation – Misenga almost gave up judo and worked with truck crews.
Fleeing his home after he saw his father being brutally murdered at the age of six, Misenga was rescued from a remote rainforest by a few good men. The odyssey from his native Bukavu to the capital city of Kinshasa and finally to Rio de Janeiro, has been long and arduous. Interestingly, he hasn’t been alone.
The 2013 World Judo Championships held at the Ginasio do Maracanazinho in Rio provided a silver lining for Misenga. Little would he have known at the time that the lining would end up being his lifeline to a better life. A lifeline which was grabbed with both hands by his compatriot, Yolande Mabika, as well.
The ensuing incidents which led to the pair being granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees a year later are so beyond the realms of probability that we can only rub our eyes in disbelief and marvel at the mysterious ways of this world.
During the championships, the Misenga and Mabika were confined to their rooms by their indifferent and cruel coaches, who had a habit of confiscating their belongings – including food – whenever they lost. After 48 long hours of confinement, Mabika finally managed to escape from her room and convinced Misenga to abandon the contingent as well.
However, this is where the buck dropped for the pair; they were left alone, meandering about aimlessly in a vast nation of which they had little knowledge. Miraculously, they met an Angolan on their way, who took them to the neighbourhood of Bras de Pina, which is teeming with African immigrants.
They’ve never had to look back since. Today they are one, or rather two, among the hallowed 10 of the Refugee Olympic Team.
The one thing that binds these brave men and women is their indomitable, unflinching, indefatigable spirit. Like Kuany says, “Most of the time, people tend to see refugees as victims. And by that, they dehumanize them. And that’s what they are setting out to prove – that they are refugees, but they aren’t victims.
“People should see the other side. When a refugee is mentioned, people start thinking of somebody who needs help, of somebody who needs this, of somebody who needs that, of somebody who cannot do this, of somebody who cannot do that. That’s very wrong.” He couldn’t have said it any better.
With 20 million people displaced across the globe and a further 40 million people displaced within their own countries, the refugee crisis is real. It is real, it is ongoing and it is tragic. However, few things in life have the healing power and ability to unite people that sport does.
The great Bill Shankly wasn’t dealing in hyperbole when he famously said about football that it was “much more than life and death”. Such is the fervour and joy that sport ignites within people. And for the millions of men, women and children stricken by grief, the Olympic Games are a godsend, albeit a temporary one.
“They’re just like any other normal human being in a much more peaceful and safer place. The only thing they’re looking for is safety, so that they can try and do something with their lives, which they cannot do in their conflicted countries. That’s the message that these athletes are going to communicate to the world,” says Kuany, before quipping, “You never know, those guys may win something! These are people who are structured by adversity and I think they should be able to do well.”
The excitement in his voice is palpable. And so it is for millions of others, watching those 10 great athletes with bated breath. This story began with a verse from William Henley’s Victorian poem, Invictus. And so it is only fitting that it should end with a verse from the same, that captures the spirit of the Refugee Team sublimely.
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years,
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid”.
