After swimming for her life, refugee Mardini a symbol in pool
RIO DE JANEIRO — Yusra Mardini stood on the starting block Wednesday afternoon and looked down to the end of the pool, 50 meters away.
Such a short distance. At the end of a long and amazing journey.
The star of the pool at the Rio Olympics has been Michael Phelps, adding to his riches that now total 21 gold medals.
But the real star on the pool deck is Mardini, an 18-year old member of the Refugee Olympic Team who finished 45th in the 100-meter freestyle heats, 12 seconds behind the top time.
“It was an amazing feeling in the water,” Mardini said after her swim. “I was really proud and happy.”
And a 1-minute, 4-second swim is easy for a young woman who spent 3½ hours swimming to freedom after she escaped
from Syria.
The Refugee Olympic Team is an antidote to the corruption and doping and excess of the Olympics. It is one of the few truly noble things the International Olympic Committee has done in recent memory. And even though the skeptic will say the self-serving IOC might have created the team only to counter criticism, whatever the motivation, this is a powerful and important development. ‘All colors, all countries’
Ten refugees from Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are competing here under the flag of the IOC because they had to flee their countries of origin. At the Opening Ceremony, they drew a spine-tingling cheer, the biggest ovation other than the one for the host Brazilian team.
Granted, 10 athletes are a very small representation of the worst refugee crises the globe has witnessed since World War II. But they are a powerful symbol.
“I want to show the world that ‘refugee’ is not a bad word,” Mardini said.
“This team is amazing. They are all colors, all countries.”
In this divisive time, when refugees are feared and banned, when walls are proposed, this small group is a human reminder that these are brave, desperate people. Trying simply to stay alive.
Mardini grew up in Damascus, swimming since she was 3 and eventually becoming part of the Syrian national team. War broke out in 2011, when she was just 13, and her life changed. In 2012, her home was destroyed. Fellow swimmers whom she knew were killed. She and her sister Sarah, along with two cousins, fled their home last August.
They flew to Beirut. Then to Istanbul, where they connected with smugglers, who took them to the coast to board a boat for Greece. She and 19 others, including a 6-year-old boy, were packed onto a dinghy meant to accommodate only six people.
After 20 minutes, the engine died, and the boat began to take on water. She and Sarah and two young men were the only passengers who knew how to swim. They jumped into the cold Mediterranean and began to swim, pulling the boat beside them.
Mardini remembered thinking during the 3½ hours, “I’m a swimmer, and I’m going to die in the water.” Dream fulfilled
They finally made it to shore in Lesbos. But that wasn’t the hardest part. The sisters traveled by foot or on smuggler’s buses through Greece, Macedonia and Serbia and into Hungary. They finally made it to Berlin, where they spent a hard, cold winter.
With the help of an interpreter at the refugee camp where they lived, Mardini connected with a local sports club and began training. When she and her German trainer heard about the refugee team, she applied for and was granted a training scholarship.
Her experience in Rio has been overwhelming. The girl who just wanted to get to safety has found herself in the international spotlight.
“I don’t even expect all this attention,” she said Wednesday, after her final competition. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after this because I never expected anything.
“The only thing I know is I want to continue swimming and I want to continue supporting refugees.”
While her dream of competing in the Olympics has been fulfilled, another dream had not yet been realized as of Wednesday afternoon. She still hadn’t met Phelps.
“Not yet. He has a lot of things to do, and I don’t want to bother him,” Mardini said. “Maybe when he finishes, he will remember us.”
He should. Phelps should meet the real star of the Rio pool.
“Without swimming,” Mardini said, “I would never be alive.”