Long odds nothing new for Olympic refugee team

The Olympics for the first time will feature an all-refugee team made up of 10 displaced people who have overcome incredible odds to make it to Rio de Janeiro. But only one of the 10 athletes, Yonas Kinde, has met Olympic qualifying times or standards, once again presenting them with long odds.

Kinde, a marathoner, ran from his native Ethiopia. For the last five years, the 36-year-old has lived as a refugee in Luxembourg, driving a taxi to pay for food and other necessities. He takes French lessons to help him adjust and last year finished a marathon in Germany in a terrific 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Kinde has trained alone, running twice a day to achieve world-class times, but no nationality has meant no major competitions. This year, with the creation of the refugee team, that changed.

“I can’t explain to you the feeling,” Kinde said, “It’s like power.”

Sports Illustrated acknowledged cynics might consider the team little more than a marketing gimmick: “What with endless reports out of Rio about depleted budgets, political collapse, social unrest, the Zika virus and the consequent withdrawal of high-profile athletes … the Olympic brand has taken a savage beating.”

But the refugee team is more than “a bit of humanitarian counterprogramming.” The other nine members will be able to compete in qualifying events. If they do better than they have ever done before, they can make it to the finals.

And if they don’t, even getting to Rio is for them a quasi-miracle.

Yiech Pur Biel’s mother—alone and starving, with four children trusting her and South Sudanese soldiers behind her—knew she must make a choice. For three days, her family hid in the bush, foraging and hoping to walk 19 miles into Ethiopia. But she couldn’t take all four children, and she figured Biel, 10, had a chance alone. She left him.

A neighbor woman took him in and lied about his identity to a UN rescue mission to save him. She brought him to a Kenyan refugee camp as part of her family. He lived there until this year when he qualified for the refugee Olympic team in the 800 meter run. He still does not know if his family survived, but he wants to “give a message that a refugee can do anything any other human being can do.”

Yolande Mabika, originally from war-torn Congo, lost her family years ago during the fighting. She only remembers a helicopter taking her away to a home for displaced children. There someone taught her judo and she quickly excelled.

In 2013, her coach brought her to the Rio World Championships, but he stole her passport and starved her, so she ran away into the streets of Brazil.

She spent two years on the run and eventually found a home with a nonprofit sports organization. There her new judoka master, Flavio Canto, trained her for Rio 2016. She still misses her family and dreams the Olympics might put her on the global stage long enough to reach out to them. When she gets on TV, she has told reporters, she will give her phone number and tell her story. She hopes some family member will recognize and call her.

Last year, 20 Syrian refugees in a tiny inflatable dinghy faced a nightmare: It was filling with water and they could not swim. Yusra Mardini and her sister Susan, already worldwide competitive swimmers, jumped into the Turkish coastal waters and pushed the boat toward Greece. They stayed in the water for 3 ½ hours, barely making it to the beach. Yusra lost her shoes.

They hiked for weeks, hiding from police, risking their lives with smugglers and thieves—past Greece, Macedonia and Serbia, into Austria, eventually reaching Germany. The Mardinis found a home in Berlin and began swim training again at a local club. A new coach found Yusra, now 18, and helped her train for months to earn her spot on the refugee team.

“I want refugees to be proud of me,” she said. “I just want to encourage them.”

The 2016 Olympic Games begin Friday with the opening ceremony.