Refugee Olympic Team athlete and Chef de Mission for the Refugee Olympic Team Paris 2024, Masomah Ali Zada, and Yiech Pur Biel, IOC Member and a member of the first-ever IOC Refugee Olympic Team at Rio 2016, will be present on this occasion.
After the presentation, journalists will have the opportunity to join an online media roundtable with Masomah Ali Zada and Yiech Pur Biel to ask questions about the team and the Olympic Refuge Foundation.
To attend the online media roundtable, please register via this Zoom link.
Date: Thursday 2 May 2024 Time: 14.00 CEST Participants: Masomah Ali Zada, Chef de Mission for the Refugee Olympic Team Paris 2024, member of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020 and member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission Yiech Pur Biel, IOC Member and member of the first-ever IOC Refugee Olympic Team at Rio 2016
Please note that, as part of the registration process, we may ask you to provide a press card or a letter from your editor in order for us to accept your registration. You will receive an email with a link to the video teleconference. Please connect exclusively via Google Chrome or the Zoom app.
During the Q&A session, to address the panel please use the “raise hand” function. Once you are called upon to ask your question, we request that you open up your camera and microphone to put your question.
For this media event, both audio and video can be recorded for distribution, which means that your image will appear in the feed when you are asking your question, and may be distributed by the participating media.
A video news release (VNR) of the announcement will be published later in the day on the IOC Newsroom, where a VNR of Masomah Ali Zada being named Chef de Mission for the Refugee Olympic Team Paris 2024 is also available.
Context
Confronted with the global refugee crisis that has seen millions of people in the world displaced, IOC President Thomas Bach announced in 2015 the creation of the Refugee Olympic Team – the first of its kind – to take part in the Olympic Games Rio 2016. Following this historic participation, Olympic Scholarships for Refugee Athletes were established.
The scholarships are fully funded by the IOC through its Olympic Solidarity programme for refugee athletes, and are managed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation (ORF). Fifty Refugee Athlete Scholarship-holders were supported in the build-up to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, with 29 athletes in 12 sports eventually being selected and competing for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020.
A total of 75 refugee athletes have benefited from scholarships for Paris 2024. They come from 12 countries, live in 24 host countries, and represent 14 sports.
To be eligible for the Refugee Athlete Support programme, and ultimately be part of the Refugee Olympic Team, athletes must be competitive in their respective sport and be refugees in their host country, as recognised by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
The ORF, which manages the Refugee Olympic Team, was established by the IOC to ensure that young people affected by displacement thrive through sport. Through its work, the Foundation has ensured that more than 300,000 young people affected by displacement are able to access sport, and reap the benefits of doing so.
More information on the Refugee Olympic Team and ORF can be found here:
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