Yusra Mardini who was born on the 5th of March 1998 is actually a Syrian swimmer currently living in Hamburg, Germany. She was one of the members of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team, which competed under the Olympic flag at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. On 27 April 2017, Mardini was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Plus, she also competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo with the Refugee Olympic Team.
Little did people know, she actually has her own inspiring story on why she is so determined to prepare herself for this recent Olympics. Yusra Mardini is indeed one of the Refugee Olympic Team’s stars swimmers. The Olympics in Tokyo is her second Olympic Games on this unique team competing in a sport that saved her life. This is her story.
She personally shared that swimming really changed her own life. According to Yusra Mardini, the journey that she went through from Syria to Europe in the year of 2015 was typically hazardous as an inflatable boat she was in with her sister began taking on water after the engine failed as they tried to cross the sea to reach Greece. Based on her experience, for three-and-a-half terrifying hours they tried to drag the boat through the waves to the shore of the island of Lesbos.
Because of the experience, she is still scared of open water after the ordeal but has rediscovered her love of swimming in the stability of her new life in Hamburg. Now, she is proudly one of 29 athletes on the refugee squad in Tokyo which is three times bigger than the team that first competed under the Olympic flag in Rio in 2016. Yusra Mardini said, “Those tough journeys, tough, illegal journeys, people are still making… people are still dying on the way. One really sad thing is that the number of displaced people in I think 2016 was 65 million and now it’s 82. So it’s just increasing… and yeah, we’re going to be representing all of those people around the world”.
She also added, “Fleeing your country by force to, you know, find a place to stay safe, to have a better future and to think about your kids already know and to think about building a happy family, a small house with a garden. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if people are not coping with refugees being successful and having good jobs, then I don’t think that’s our problem”.
Sources: Sky News.