Recently, the information space exploded with news from the All Sport agency, which reported with reference to its sources that Russian athletes will be admitted to the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris on the same principle that a refugee team is selected for the Games. The Sport correspondent tells what kind of team this is and why even if rumors about the admission of Russians are confirmed, analogies with refugees are categorically inappropriate.
The Refugee Olympic Team was created in October 2015. IOC President Thomas Bach announced this event at the UN General Assembly, presenting it as a symbol of hope for all people in this status, of which there are currently more than 35 million people in the world. The refugee team competed at the Olympics less than a year after its creation — at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Of the ten people, five were natives of South Sudan, two were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (ex-Zaire) and Syria, and one was from Ethiopia. All ethnic South Sudanese and Ethiopians competed in athletics, Congolese in judo, Syrians in swimming.
The process of forming the refugee team was as follows: all the National Olympic Committees were asked to find out if there were displaced people in their countries who could show results high enough to participate in the Games. Syrian Yusra Mardini was one of the first to make this list. Her story was known outside of sports: she, along with her sister and 18 other migrants, tried to sail from Greece to Turkey on a motorboat. The ship broke down in the open sea. Then Mardini and four other people jumped into the water and pushed the boat with people for three hours until they reached the Greek island of Lesbos. >Especial success neither the Syrian swimmer, nor any of the other ten at the Olympics in Rio did not reach. Athletes did not advance further than the preliminary heats, and swimmers — preliminary heats. Only judoka Popolye Misenga scored relatively well, who in the category up to 90 kg went directly to the second round, where he defeated the Indian Avtar Singh, and then lost to the future bronze medalist Kwak Don Khan from South Korea.
But, of course, no one expected high results from the refugees. The purpose of creating such a team, rather, was symbolic. Although the IOC allocated $2 million for the preparation of refugees for the Olympics, it would be naive to expect that without a normal training process they will impose competition on professional athletes who are purposefully preparing for the Games. But the refugee team at the opening ceremony went right in front of the host team of the Olympics — the Brazilian team.
The experience of the refugee team at the 2016 Games was recognized as successful, because the preparation of such a team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was already on a larger scale. A total of 46 athletes were selected, including the ten who competed in Rio. In the process of training before the Olympics, they received a special scholarship from the Olympic Solidarity Fund. The team also included an athlete who lived in Russia at that time — judoka Nigara Shahin, a native of Afghanistan.
In Tokyo, the refugee team was at the opening ceremony under the second number — right after Greece, the ancestor of the Olympic Games. In sports arenas, representatives of this team were already a little more visible. So, Hamun Derafshipur, who left Iran for Canada, took fifth place in the category up to 67 kg in karate, and Kimiya Alizade, who left Iran for the sake of living in Germany, achieved a similar result in taekwondo (category up to 57 kg).
The program to support the refugee Olympic team is working and continues to expand — for example, 53 people are already preparing for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris in special training camps. However, not everything is so smooth in this topic, as the IOC states. Time magazine in 2021 told the story of Dominic Lokinyomo Lobalu, an athlete from South Sudan who lived and trained in one of the IOC-run refugee training camps in Kenya. According to him, life in such a camp was held under the strict control of the owners, and the prize money that athletes periodically earned in competitions did not reach them.
Several dissatisfied athletes after one of the tournaments asked to give them prize money immediately. Having received the funds, they did not return to the camp, but asked for asylum in Switzerland. As a result, they were immediately deprived of the status of a candidate for the refugee Olympic team. As the saying goes, if you want to go to the Games, play by the rules.
According to one such athlete, the IOC-sponsored scholarship for this camp was only $46 a month. Even in Kenya, this is very modest money, and the athletes had to regularly ask for a loan from the locals. In response to complaints, leaders often responded, «If you don't like it, go back to the refugee camp.» And they pressed on the fact that the athletes have a bed in a hostel and food, which is enough for them.Now about how the members of the refugee team at the Olympic Games can be similar to those Russian athletes who get there (and want to go in a neutral status). In fact: except that they will perform under the Olympic flag in a uniform that does not indicate nationality, and in case of victory, they will listen to the Olympic anthem. The IOC has already previously announced this at previous executive committees, and this is logical. If earlier, when sanctions for doping cases were in effect, the Russian team still had some national symbols at the Olympics, for which the IOC was mercilessly criticized by the ill-wishers of the Russians, now Bach and the company will clearly not allow either Tchaikovsky or the word «Russia» in the name of the Olympic team .
But the principles of admitting Russians in a neutral status to the Games in any case will have nothing to do with the process of selecting refugees — even if we take as a basis those theses, which have not yet been officially confirmed by anyone, published by All Sport. According to them, allegedly, the Russian Olympic Committee and national sports federations will not be involved in the selection process. Candidates will apply on an individual basis and will be reviewed by the IOC for compliance with the Olympic qualification standards and the criteria of their admission guidelines.
After approval, the athlete will have to stop participating in national competitions and stop receiving support from Russian sports organizations, and he will have to carry out the entire preparation process at his own expense. It is reported that the conditions have already been communicated to the leaders of Russian sports.
In the case of refugees, candidates must have this status officially in accordance with the criteria defined by the relevant UN structures. The preliminary selection of candidates is carried out by the National Olympic Committees of those countries in which the displaced persons are currently located. In the process of preparing for the Olympics, refugees compete in competitions under the auspices of the national federation of the country in which they are staying, in their sport. Refugees are not part of the Olympic qualification system. Finally, refugees receive funding for preparations for the Olympic Games from the Olympic Solidarity Foundation, and do not train at their own expense.
Unfortunately, bright speakers on a topic thrown into the Internet space were laziness, as well as to understand about the solidity of the source of this and close to non-official information. So the president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, Mikhail Mamiashvili, was already going to go to Paris on tanks. And few of the other worthy experts tried not to succumb to the hype. Meanwhile, there is no analogy between Russian athletes and refugees, even in the worst case scenario, and cannot be. Moreover, from the sources interviewed by Sport correspondents in the Russian sports establishment, no one confirmed that the IOC had already made any decision and brought it to the Russian side.