IOC Refugees Olympic Team to be announced on May 2

F.P. Report

PESHAWAR: The composition of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team Paris 2024 will be announced by IOC President Thomas Bach during a special live-streamed event at 13:00 CEST on Thursday (May 2), 2024.

Refugee Olympic Team athlete and Chef de Mission for the Refugee Olympic Team Paris 2024, Masomah Ali Zada, and Yiech Pur Biel, IOC Member and a member of the first-ever IOC Refugee Olympic Team at Rio 2016, will be present on this occasion.

After the presentation, journalists will have the opportunity to join an online media roundtable with Masomah Ali Zada and Yiech Pur Biel to ask questions about the team and the Olympic Refuge Foundation.

Confronted with the global refugee crisis that has seen millions of people in the world displaced, IOC President Thomas Bach announced in 2015 the creation of the Refugee Olympic Team – the first of its kind – to take part in the Olympic Games Rio 2016. Following this historic participation, Olympic Scholarships for Refugee Athletes were established.

The scholarships are fully funded by the IOC through its Olympic Solidarity programme for refugee athletes and are managed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation (ORF). Fifty Refugee Athlete Scholarship holders were supported in the build-up to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, with 29 athletes in 12 sports eventually being selected and competing for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020.

A total of 75 refugee athletes have benefited from scholarships for Paris 2024. They come from 12 countries, live in 24 host countries, and represent 14 sports. To be eligible for the Refugee Athlete Support program, and ultimately be part of the Refugee Olympic Team, athletes must be competitive in their respective sport and be refugees in their host country, as recognized by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

The ORF, which manages the Refugee Olympic Team, was established by the IOC to ensure that young people affected by displacement thrive through sport. Through its work, the Foundation has ensured that more than 300,000 young people affected by displacement can access sport, and reap the benefits of doing so. (APP)