Refugee Paralympic Team swimmer Abbas Karimi to be the only Afghan at Tokyo 2020

Afghanistan won’t be competing in next week’s Paralympics but an Afghan swimmer is on his way to Tokyo...and with big ambitions.

At dawn Tuesday morning Abbas Karimi boarded an American Airlines flight to the Olympic venue as a member of the six-athlete Refugee Paralympic Team.

“The journey begins. Tokyo 2020” Karimi captioned on his social media below a photo alongside Marty Hendrick, a top coach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the Afghan athlete lives.

Born without arms, Karimi is a champion swimmer, dresses, drives a car and even writes with his feet. He has Facebook.

When this athlete, a native of Kabul, arrives in Tokyo his thoughts will not be focused only on the pool. Once again the Taliban have returned to power in his country after a 20-year war and he is worried about his family and friends.

Precisely the current serious political situation in his nation has caused the withdrawal of Afghanistan from the Paralympic Games in which he had entered two para-athletes in Taekwondo, one of them, Zakia Khudadadi, would have been the first woman to represent Afghanistan in the history of these competitions.

In making the announcement of this absence the International Paralympic Committee said that “all airports are closed and there is no way for them to travel to Tokyo.”

It was unclear whether the IPC would still be able to make any further arrangements to assist Afghan participation.

For the time being Karimi will also be representing Afghanistan.

He hopes to become the first Paralympic Refugee Team athlete to win a medal when he participates on Aug. 27 in the 50-meter butterfly and three days later in the 50-meter backstroke.

Already in 2017 during the Para Swimming World Championships in Mexico, he was the first refugee to win an international medal when he won silver in the S5 category, defined for swimmers who have moderately limited coordination, with very restricted movement of the mid-torso and legs, or the absence of limbs.

At the age of 16, already an award-winning swimmer who learned to make the most of her feet because she had no arms, Karimi secretly devised a plan to flee Afghanistan with the help of an older brother.

First he escaped to Iran. Then he began a harrowing three-day journey through the mountains to Turkey.

During his four years in Turkey, from 2013 to 2016, Karimi lived in four different refugee camps.

During his time in Turkey, Karimi won 15 medals, including two national championships. However, he was not eligible to compete internationally because he did not have a passport or the required documentation.

According to www.paralympic.org , in September 2015, Mike Ives, a retired teacher and former wrestling coach in the United States saw a video of Karimi posted on Facebook. Karimi was demonstrating his swimming skills and asking the government of Afghanistan to support him so he could represent the country at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Ives sent Karimi a long message encouraging him to go to Portland in the United States to support him.

Ives worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to get the required documentation and helped Karimi relocate to Portland in 2016.

Following his silver medal from Mexico 2017, at his second World Championships in London in 2019 he finished sixth. Shortly after due to the death of his father he returned to Afghanistan for 11 days. Upon his return to the US, he moved to Fort Lauderdale with the dream of becoming a Paralympic champion and found Marty Hendrick, who promised to help to transform him into a faster swimmer.

And things have worked out well because he was called up to the Paralympic Refugee Team.

“I want to make the podium in Tokyo. I’m not just going to compete. I hate to lose,” said Karimi, this year named a “High Profile Partner” of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The Paralympic Refugee Team consists of one woman and five men - Alia Issa, Ibrahim Al Hussein, Parfait Hakizimana, Abbas Karimi, Shahrad Nassajpour and Anas Al Khalifa - who will compete in Para athletics, Para swimming, Para canoeing and Para taekwondo.

They will be the first team to enter the Tokyo Olympic Stadium during the Opening Ceremony on August 24.

Their Chef de Mission will be a Cuban refugee and former U.S. Paralympic competitor, young architect Ileana Rodriguez.

As a swimmer she wore the Stars and Stripes uniform for the first time at the Guadalajara Parapan American Games in 2011 and a year later at the London Paralympic Games.

Since the 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto she has represented the athletes on the executive of the Americas Paralympic Committee.

Rodriguez has lived in Miami since she arrived from the Caribbean island 20 years ago. In Matanzas, her hometown near the famous Varadero beach, she developed her talent as a swimmer and in ballet school until an unforeseen illness paralyzed her legs at the age of 13.

Rodriguez arrived in Florida in a wheelchair but her dreams moved forward until they became reality and today she enjoys another special moment in her life with this designation in Tokyo and in front of young people, each with a memorable story to tell.

′′When I make the podium, I will make many refugees around the world happy. For me, I will feel that I am a lion, someone who always fights hard and never gives up no matter what.” says Karimi, the Afghan in the entourage.

“I think God took my arms by mistake, but he gave me a talent in my feet.”

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