South Sudan Refugees Relish Olympic Moment

(ATR) Members of the refugee Olympic team from South Sudan tell Around the Rings they want to show the world what potential stateless people have.

Of the full ten-member team, five South Sudanese athletes will be competing in athletics. The athletes escaped from the decades long civil war in South Sudan, and were discovered in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

Tegla Lorupe, a Kenyan world championship medalist in the 10,000m, runs a foundation aimed at providing opportunities through sport for disenfranchised youth in Northeast Kenya. She worked to discover the athletes after IOC President Thomas Bach announced the creation of a refugee team last year. After conducting races that served as trials, the top runners moved to Nairobi to begin training in the hopes of reaching Olympic standard of participation.

"These athletes are not here because they are handpicked, but here because they are very good," Lorupe said to reporters today.

James Chiengjiek, who will run in the men’s 400m, told ATR that he is overjoyed by the IOC’s decision to "not allow politics to come into sports." He says that by training and working hard to become an Olympic athlete in just under a year shows the potential refugees around the world have, and it is ready to be tapped.

"This is a good moment for all refugees because we are representing refugees worldwide," Chiengjiek said. "This shows that refugees can do something. [Competing here] is a good time and we have had good interactions, and learned some things."

Chiengjiek’s sentiments were joined by his teammate Yiech Pur Biel, who is set to run the 800m in Rio. Biel told reporters that he believes he became an Olympian through his steadfast faith in both God and "everything you are doing," in life. He says racing in Rio presents the opportunity to reach and inspire refugees around the world to remind them they can achieve greatness and change their own lives.

"This opportunity presents a million refugees who are looking up to our eyes," Biel said. "This chance will change our lives as a refugee, and allow us to tell [the world] where we have come as a refugee, and we can do everything a human thing can do."

Competing under the IOC Flag in Rio will present a bittersweet moment for the entire athletic delegation. Olympic debutante South Sudan will have three athletes competing under the country’s flag, and the refugee athletes expressed hope they could join the delegation in four years during the Tokyo Games.

By chance, the refugee athletes ended up sharing a meal with the South Sudanese delegation in the Olympic village yesterday. Rose Lokonyen, who will run the women’s 800m, said the moment represented what the Olympics were all about, a sporting competition that transcends borders.

"We were very excited to meet with our fellow colleagues," Lokonyen said. "We got to congratulate the work they did."

Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro

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