The Refugee Olympic Team is a group made up of independent Olympic participants who are refugees. In March 2016, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach announced the creation of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team, as a symbol of hope for all refugees in the world in order to raise global awareness of the scale of the migrant crisis in Europe. In September 2017, the IOC established the Olympic Refuge Foundation to support refugees over the long term.[1][2]
The Olympic flag and the Olympic Hymn are used as team symbols. The participating athletes marched in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics, with the team entering the stadium as the penultimate delegation, just before the host country. At the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, the team entered the stadium second after Greece.[3]
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, the team used the IOC country code ROT. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, it was changed to EOR (an abbreviation of the French Équipe olympique des réfugiés). As of 2026, no Refugee Olympic athletes had participated in the Winter Olympic Games, nor Youth Olympic Games (regardless of Summer or Winter).
The team was awarded the 2022 Princess of Asturias Award for Sport for giving athletes the opportunity in conflict zones and places where human rights are violated, preventing them from performing their sporting and personal activities.[4]
Cindy Ngamba, a refugee from Cameroon, became the first person to win an Olympic medal for the Refugee Olympic Team, winning a bronze medal in the women's 75kg boxing event at the 2024 Summer Olympics.[5] Kimia Alizadeh, who represented the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Summer Olympics, won bronze at the 2022 European Taekwondo Championships while representing the Refugee Team, after previously winning bronze for Iran at the 2016 Summer Olympics, and before winning bronze for Bulgaria at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Medal tables
Medals by Summer Games
| Games | Athletes | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 2016 Rio de Janeiro | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – |
 2020 Tokyo | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – |
 2024 Paris | 37 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 84 |
 2028 Los Angeles | future event | |||||
 2032 Brisbane | ||||||
| Total | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 151 | |
Medals by sport
| Sport | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Boxing | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals (1 entries) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
List of medalists
| Medal | Name | Games | Sport | Event |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bronze | Cindy Ngamba | 2024 Paris |  Boxing | Women's middleweight |
Participations
This category was created in March 2016. The selection criteria include the sporting level, the official refugee status verified by the United Nations, the personal situation, and the background of each athlete.
2016 Summer Olympics
2020 Summer Olympics
At its meeting in Buenos Aires in October 2018, the International Olympic Committee decided to establish the Refugee Olympic Team (EOR) for the 2020 Summer Olympics. This decision built on the legacy of the Refugee Olympic Team in 2016 and was part of the IOC's commitment to play its part in addressing the global refugee crisis and in carrying the message of solidarity and hope to millions of refugee athletes around the world.
The IOC Session tasked Olympic Solidarity with establishing the conditions of participation and defining the team identification and selection process. These elements were carried out in close collaboration with the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the International Sports Federations, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). On 20 June 2019, the IOC released the list of Refugee Athlete Scholarship holders who wished to join the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, Tokyo 2020. This announcement was made on World Athlete Day, celebrated every year on 20 June.
The 56 Refugee Athlete Scholarship holders include the 10 athletes who were part of the first Refugee Olympic Team in 2016, new individual athletes, and a group of athletes preparing at the Tegla Loroupe Refugee Training Center in Kenya. All were assisted by Olympic Solidarity as part of its support program for refugee athletes. The IOC Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Tokyo Games consisted of 29 athletes—19 men and 10 women—hailing from 11 nations: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela. These athletes competed across 12 sports: athletics, badminton, boxing, cycling, canoeing, judo, karate, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting, and wrestling.[6]
Swimmer Yusra Mardini, who competed in the 2016 Rio Games as part of the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team, and marathon runner Tachlowini Gabriyesos were selected as flag bearers for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Tokyo Games.[7]
2024 Summer Olympics
See also
References
- ↑ "IOC Refugee Olympic Team". International Olympic Committee. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
- ↑ "Refugee Olympic Team to Shine Spotlight On Worldwide Refugee Crisis". International Olympic Committee. 3 June 2016. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
- ↑ "Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony: The magical moments". Inside The Games.
- ↑ "Refugee Olympic team awarded prestigious Spanish prize". The Washington Post. 25 May 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
- ↑ "Paris 2024: Cindy Ngamba makes history as first refugee to secure Olympic medal, reaches boxing semi-finals". Olympics. 4 August 2024.
- ↑ "IOC Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020" (PDF).
- ↑ "Yusra Mardini and Tachlowini Gabriyesos announced as flagbearers of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team". International Olympic Committee. 22 July 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
External links
- Yusra Mardini (2018). Butterfly; From Refugee to Olympian – My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph, St. Martin's Publishing Group
- Runbin Wang, Gan Li (2018). Practice, Implementation and Idea Advocacy of the Rio Refugee Olympic Team in the View of Global Governance
