Tokyo Games: the Refugee Olympic Team
Voice of America
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND - The Tokyo 2020 Games will see 29 displaced athletes living in 14 countries around the world compete as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. The squad arrives in Japan on Wednesday.
Here is a look at the history of the team, its debut at the 2016 Games, its growing place in the Olympic movement and the path towards Tokyo 2020: Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Creation Marathon runner Guor Marial, a refugee living in the United States, competed at London 2012 as an independent athlete, having made the qualifying time. He had escaped Sudan, was not a US national and his newly independent South Sudan homeland did not yet have an Olympic committee.FILE - Danny Fenster, center, hugs his mother Rose Fenster as former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, right, looks on at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, Nov. 16, 2021. Journalist Fenster was held in a Myanmar prison. Harrison Li holds a photo of his father, Kai Li, on Jan. 23, 2024, in Palo Alto, Calif. Li's father, Kai, remains detained in China on espionage charges his family says are bogus and FILE - A Hamas cameraman stands behind Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, released after more than five years in captivity, on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on Oct. 18, 2011. FILE - Families and friends of current and former hostages and detainees gather outside of the White House in Washington, May 3, 2023, to ask the Biden administration for more help. FILE - Joey and Paula Reed pose for a photo with a portrait of their son Marine veteran and Russian prisoner Trevor Reed at their home in Fort Worth, Texas, Feb. 15, 2022. FILE - In this March 16, 2016, file photo, American student Otto Warmbier, center, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Israeli soldiers clean a tank gun barrel after returning from the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, June 5, 2024. FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Middle East at the White House in Washington, May 31, 2024. Local residents protest U.S. President Joe Biden's administration support of Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to Oakland, California, June 5, 2024.
FILE - Afghanistan's Karim Sadiq dives to catch the ball while fielding during the Asia Cup one-day international cricket tournament against Pakistan in Fatullah, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 27, 2014. FILE - Afghan national cricket team coach, Taj Maluk, speaks to his team in Kabul, May 27, 2006. FILE - Gujarat Titans' Rashid Khan plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Delhi Capitals and Gujarat Titans in New Delhi, India, April 24, 2024. FILE - A sign advertises the Cricket World Cup matches in East Meadow, New York, May 8, 2024.
FILE - Achraf, 16, cries as he swims using bottles as floaters, near the fence between the Spanish-Moroccan border, after thousands of migrants swam across the border, in Ceuta, Spain, May 19, 2021. Migrants from Eritrea, Libya and Sudan sail a wooden boat before being assisted by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, in the Mediterranean sea, about 30 miles north of Libya, June 17, 2023. FILE - Migrants navigate on an overcrowded wooden boat in the Central Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and the Italian island of Lampedusa, Oct. 2, 2021, as seen from aboard the humanitarian aircraft Seabird.