Syrian swimmer hopes to represent refugees at Games
BERLIN— One year after swimming for her life in Greek coastal waters, Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini could be swimming at the Olympics.
The 18-year-old is hoping to be selected for a small team of refugees that will compete under the Olympic flag in Rio de Janeiro in August.
“I want refugees to be proud of me,” Mardini said Friday. “I just want to encourage them.”
She fled Damascus with her older sister, Sarah, last August and survived a hazardous crossing on the Aegean Sea to reach Europe.
Now, she trains at a pool built for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. She is among 43 refugees from different countries in contention for the International Olympic Committee’s “Refugee Olympic Athletes” team, which will probably consist of between five and 10 members.
“We help them to make their dream of sporting excellence come true, even when they have to flee war and violence,” IOC president Thomas Bach said Friday.
A final decision on the team members will be made by the IOC in June.
The Mardini sisters were among Syria’s brightest swimming stars until the war interrupted their progress. The family had been moving around to avoid the fighting so their daughters could continue swimming, but the war intensified and eventually the decision was taken to leave altogether.
The sisters left Damascus in early August, joining a wave of refugees who had lost hope of the conflict ending soon. They made their may to Lebanon and then Turkey, where they paid smugglers to take them to Greece.
Their first attempt was thwarted when Turkish coast guards drove their boat back, so they tried again, boarding a small inflatable dinghy at dusk. There were 20 people crowded onto the boat, all but three of whom couldn’t swim. Within half an hour, the boat was taking on water. For 3 1⁄ hours, they clung to the
2 side of the small boat until it reached the Greek island of Lesbos. A weekslong overland trek followed through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary. They had to hide from police in cornfields to reach Hungary.
Eventually, the sisters made it to Austria and then Germany. Shortly after arriving in Berlin, an Egyptian translator at their refugee shelter put them in touch with Wasserfreunde Spandau 04, a local swimming club, where they were introduced to coach Sven Spannekrebs.
Spannekrebs said he was surprised by Yusra’s remarkable progress and that she has a good shot of qualifying for the IOC’s refugee team.
They were initially working toward reaching the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but such was her progress that “everything moved a little faster than we thought. Now, if it happens, it happens,” Spannekrebs said. “A lot of athletes can take her as an example. She’s really focused.”
If she makes it to Rio, she looks forward to meeting her old Syrian teammates and friends.
“We were talking about it and it was like, ‘Yeah I’ll see you again,’ ” Yusra said. “All the athletes want to get to the Olympics. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Syrian or Olympic flag. I think I’m just going to be an athlete girl.”