His name is Aram Mahmoud.
He is 24 years old and has just lost in the second leg of the badminton competition.
Like any athlete, it stings, of course, but during the conversation with EL PAÍS in the back room of the Musashino Forest Sports Plaza, in the west of Tokyo, he always shows a happy smile and transmits a constant message of gratitude.
"This is a dream come true, something I had dreamed of all my life," he answers, recalling that in 2015 he had to leave a life behind due to the civil war that has been going on since 2011 in his country of origin, Syria, and to emigrate alone to Holland, where stone by stone a future is fortunately being built.
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Like the rest of the participants in the Games, he also paraded at the opening of the Tokyo National Stadium with his companions, capturing the attention of the world because it is him, Aram, but they are also Abdullah, Wael, Dina, Aker, Jamal , Cyrille, Popole, Nigara, Eldric ... And so on to 29, the number of members of the Refugge Olympic Team, the Olympic refugee team that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) began to shape six years ago and which is competing for the second time in the great sporting event, after debuting five ago in Rio de Janeiro. So there were only ten members.
A year earlier, during the 2015 United Nations General Assembly, Olympic President Thomas Bach announced his birth in a critical context, in the midst of a humanitarian and political crisis that led more than a million people to gamble on the Mediterranean with the aim of reaching European shores. “It will be a symbol of hope for all the world's refugees and it will make the world more aware of this crisis. It is also a signal to the international community that refugees are our fellow men and enrich society, ”said the IOC leader.
The project took shape in Rio and today they compete without a flag, with the five rings of the Olympic logo on the chest.
All of them are united by necessity, exile, flight from violence.
They are survivors.
They are the best of the 55 who received a scholarship.
They come from eleven different countries - Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Eritrea, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan and Cameroon - and compete in disciplines as disparate as badminton, cycling, wrestling, weightlifting, swimming, boxing, canoeing, karate, judo, taekwondo, shooting or athletics.
Six of them repeat regarding the Rio Games.
The welcome from Holland
"The Netherlands offered me a great opportunity, because I have been able to continue playing and also study, but above all because of having a normal life, which is what I dreamed of and for which I made a decision as difficult as leaving and starting another way ”, Mahmoud tells this newspaper. He escaped, but his own couldn't. “And there the situation is not the best, so in recent years many people are having to leave the country. It is very sad to have to leave your home, but I wanted to find a safer place to live and build my future with someone else, "he continues.
She came to the Netherlands when she came of age and they opened doors for her.
He settled in Almere, a municipality located just 30 kilometers from Amsterdam, and later obtained nationality.
“I live alone, my family is still in Syria,” he says, “so for the last five or six years I have had to manage alone.
It has not been easy, but I am very happy to be able to do what I like and in a country where there is peace.
I am proud of what I have done so far and what I am achieving.
A while ago it was impossible to imagine something like this, and now I look forward with hope. "
Aram Mahmoud, during a match in Tokyo.PEDRO PARDO / AFP
In parallel, 28 other stories of exodus, forced migration and geopolitics. For example, that of his partner Kimia Alizadeh, a taekwondo player living in Germany, forced to leave Iran "like millions of oppressed women, to be free", or that of the Afghan Sediqi, now in Belgium and who also had to leave because, She states: "I was raised in a place where women who play sports are frowned upon." They too fled from misfortune. Weightlifter Fagat Tchatchet, a Cameroonian living in the United Kingdom, suffered a depression while awaiting asylum and today, in addition to being an Olympian, he helps people with mental problems as a nurse.
“I am happy to have been able to be here and to compete against athletes of such a high level.
They are a great inspiration to me.
I think they understand the game better than I do.
I have not been able to show everything that I can do, because I have only played a couple of games, but in the future I hope to return to the Games and perform better ”, indicates Mahmoud, who has received numerous messages of support these days through the social networks - ”but not only from Syria, but from people from all over the world— and who, for the moment, will remain estranged from his family.
UNHCR's report
“I have to focus on my future, and my future is better in the Netherlands. I am receiving an education and I am playing sports at a higher level than I would have ever thought. My goal in two years time [he is 172nd in the
international
ranking
] is to become the best possible, and for that, you need the means and a suitable environment. Europe offers it to me, so for now I will continue there ”, he assures.
At the end of the talk, he highlighted the importance of creating his team: “I am very happy to be part of it and I would love to be an inspiration for other people who, like us, live in complicated situations in countries where there are conflicts. I think it's a beautiful way to send a message to the world, to tell everyone that dreams can come true if you work hard and luck is with you. We are a message to the world ”.
According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, there were more than 82 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2020, of which 26 million were refugees.
The day before the start of the Games, President Bach went to the Olympic Village and spoke with the 29 athletes: "You have the power to tell people that it is possible to build a better world."
Mardini, the standard bearer who inspired the IOC
Swimmer Yusra Mardini escaped the war in Syria when she was 17 years old. His home in Damascus was bombed and he decided to flee to Lebanon with his sister. Once there, they moved to the coast of Turkey and got on a boat with 18 other people, although it could seat six.
The boat began to sink and Mardini and Sara pushed it for more than three hours through the water until they reached the island of Lesbos. His story shocked Thomas Bach, President of the IOC; that sped up the team building.
Today, Mardini and his sister reside in Berlin. The 23-year-old swimmer, the team's standard bearer at the inauguration, is a UNHCR ambassador and in 2018 was selected by
People
magazine
as one of the women who are changing the world.
He is 23 years old and in 2022, the Netflix platform will premiere a series about his life.
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