For refugee children and youth, watching elite sport is often an escape, a way to forget for a short time some of the challenges of displacement, through watching their sporting heroes in action. Recently, the possibility of competing in sports at the highest level has become a reality for refugees. Professional sport is increasingly providing opportunities to participate in elite sport and in the process opportunities to access livelihood and other opportunities, and identify pathways into further education.
This shift began with the first IOC Refugee Olympic Team, composed of ten refugee athletes, for the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio, with the aim of raising awareness of the scale of the global refugee crisis. Competing under the Olympic flag, the athletes' stories caught the imagination of the global sport watching public and have been an inspiration for young refugees around the world. Also in 2016, the International Paralympic Committee fielded an Independent Paralympic Team with two refugee athletes at the Rio Paralympic games. Both the IOC and IPC fielded refugee teams at the Tokyo and Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Following the example of the International Olympic Committee’s refugee Olympic Team, other sports associations and federations have introduced refugee athletes and teams to major sporting events. Refugees have competed in judo and taekwondo tournaments as well as weightlifting, boxing, and athletics. In June 2023, the European Olympic Committees supported a refugee team to compete at the Kraków-Małopolska 2023 European Games, the first such team to compete at a continental game.
The IOC, IPC, sports federations and national Olympic committees continue to work to identify talented refugee athletes alongside the support of UNHCR. Individual refugees who are of international competition standard in an Olympic or Paralympic discipline should contact the sporting federation in their country of residence for more information. The 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics were a remarkable event, highlighting in particular the incredible achievements of the Refugee Olympic and Paralympic Teams, with 45 athletes competing across 20 different disciplines. This year’s games also marked a historic milestone as both teams secured their first-ever medals.
