Eliud Kipchoge champions refugee athletes chasing glory in youth Olympics

The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Refuge Foundation brought the team together with support from the National Olympic Committees of Kenya and Uganda, World Athletics, Athletics Kenya, UNHCR, and the national judo and taekwondo federations.

Edwin Kiplagat, Marabou News Agency

Six refugee athletes will make their debut at this year’s Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, in what will be a first for both the continent and the refugee team.

The Games, scheduled to run from October 31 to November 13, will be hosted in Africa for the first time. The refugee team will compete in athletics, judo and taekwondo.

Comprising Rashid Rechene, Florence Masimbi, Clement Niyomuhoza, Nyataba Kuek, Lourance Namukiza, and Arno Yfunga, the team has pitched camp in Kenya’s Uasin Gishu County, where marathon great Eliud Kipchoge and other top Kenyan athletes train.

The athletes met Kipchoge, the double Olympic champion who praised the initiative.

“I’m really feeling good to be associated with refugees. Above all is to change their minds not to believe and treat themselves as refugees, so that’s my happiness. By actually succeeding to change their minds to believe in themselves to know that they have the same capabilities as other athletes,” Kipchoge said.

The athletes have been drawn from Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya and Uganda.

“These athletes you’re seeing here, as the National Olympic Committee, we are looking at the bigger picture beyond sports. We are just using sports as a platform to help them achieve their visions in life,” National Olympic Committee of Kenya Secretary General John Ogola said of the initiative.

“This year we are going to have the Youth Olympics in Senegal, in Dakar of course, and that’s why we are here to make sure that that team is given all the support and preparation that is required to go and compete not only participating,” Barnaba Korir, the First Deputy President of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK), said.

“But we want them to show the world that, yes, as much as they go through a lot of problems, they have also been integrated into our system so that the other parts of the world where they will introduce refugee teams can see what Kenya has done and adopt the same system.”

The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Refuge Foundation have brought the team together with support from the National Olympic Committees of Kenya and Uganda, World Athletics, Athletics Kenya, UNHCR, and the national judo and taekwondo federations.

Marabou News Agency

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