Consider This from NPR - They are Olympic athletes — and refugees

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

There are some 43 million refugees in the world, according to the U.N.'s refugee agency.The 37 of them competing in Paris as the Refugee Olympic Team are fighting for something more than just athletic excellence.We hear from judoka Muna Dahouk and kayaker Saman Soltani.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Muna Dahouk started learning judo when she was six years old. Her father was a coach, and he owned his own dojo. Most of the time, I was like crying. I was so like, I don't want to go to training. I just, I want to spend my time in the street with my friend. I want to play. But the thing is, my father, he was thinking, if you want to get your dream in the future and to be like as a professional athlete, you have to train hard.

Like many of her fellow Olympians, Muna Dahouk stuck with her sport and grew to love it. But given what's happened in her native country, she's also had a harder time pursuing it than others. I'm from Syria. I'm 28 years old and I will represent the refugees for this year. Dahouk is part of the Refugee Olympic Team. The team debuted in Rio with a slate of 10 swimmers, sprinters, and judokas originally from countries like Syria and South Sudan. The team had nearly tripled in size by the Tokyo Olympics. This year, it again has the most athletes it's ever had, and middleweight boxer Cindy Negamba has already clinched its first ever medal. If she returned to her native Cameroon, she could be imprisoned

for her sexuality. Consider this. There are some 43 million refugees in the world, according to the UN's Refugee Agency. The 37 of them competing in Paris as the Refugee Olympic Team are fighting for something more than just athletic excellence. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Consider This from NPR. The Refugee Olympic Team was created to help athletes impacted by the global crisis of displacement. We're going to hear more about two of them. Judoka Muna Dahouk was a teenager when anti-government protests swept through her native Syria, tipping it closer to civil war. When the war started in Damascus, I had to stop completely

on training. Muna's family moved to a safer area, but the war went on. And then in 2015, her father died of a heart attack. After my father died, we felt like it's too dangerous to stay there without my dad. And we were so young, and the situation there was so hard and so dangerous. We would know that there is no future for us. In the following years, Muna and her mom and brother fled to the Netherlands and her father's dojo fell into disrepair. But Muna kept the family's judo tradition alive, qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics. And now she is hitting the mats in Paris. Being here on this Olympic stage, Muna says,

it's a realization of her dream and also her father's. I'm sure now that now my father is so proud of me to like let my dreams come true and to continue with these hard situations I hadn't before. She says she still hopes to return to Syria someday to rebuild her dad's dojo. I had, like, in that club many memories. And even my, like, first steps when I was a baby, I started in the tatami. So yeah, maybe one day I will like building this club again. Muna Dahouk. She and the refugee Olympic team competed in the judo mixed team events, and she also competed as an individual in her own weight category.

When I was in the water, I feel I'm the most free person in the world. This is the kayaker Saman Sultani. She is also 28 and grew up in Iran. The story goes back to when I was five years old and my parents sent me to the swimming pool to learn swimming. And after two years, I started to be a champion in swimming and also artistic swimming. Artistic swimming, also known as synchronized swimming. You see, before becoming a globally recognized kayaker and now Olympian, she spent years in the pool. She got so good at artistic swimming, she became a national champion in Iran. But the country's restrictions held her back. Because competing internationally is forbidden for the women in any sport that you cannot

participate with the hijab. So basically you couldn't go more than that in Iran, unfortunately. So two summers ago, Saman went to Barcelona to train with Olympic champions at an artistic swimming camp. She posted about it on Instagram, and soon she heard that Iran's notorious morality police had taken notice. I was informed that I cannot go back anymore because it's dangerous and what I did is not acceptable according to the Islamic rules. And therefore, I decided to hide somewhere. I didn't have anything. I just had a suitcase for 10 days, being in Barcelona, and that's it. She sought refuge in Vienna to stay with the only person she knew in Europe.

And she watched from afar when Masa Amini died in police custody in Iran, launching huge protests and a corresponding crackdown from the regime. The government arrested three of the members of the Iran national team, and so many of my friends were in prison. I was really, really, really scared because I didn't know what will happen in the future. So I was crying and I was panicking. I couldn't talk at all. I saw a nightmare every night that two persons come and want to force me to go back to Iran. So it was really, really hard.

And in a different country, with different language, with different people. And when I was in Iran, I had a life and I had friends. But basically, suddenly, in a second, I lost my everything. It was in that moment of crisis that she decided to run toward what had always been a lifelong dream, the dream of being an Olympian. She threw herself back into training and a sport she'd also excelled at while in Iran, kayaking. And today, she can finally call herself an Olympian. I'm really happy and I'm really proud that I'm part of this team. We are the people who deserve to live free.

We lost our country, our flag, our everything. And in this situation, we decided to again fight one more time, two more times, several times, again and again. And yeah, let's see what will happen in the Olympics. Kayaker Saman Sultani. She'll represent the refugee Olympic team in the women's kayak single 500-meter race this week. This episode was produced by Vincent Accovino and Mark Rivers. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Patrick

Jaron Watanon. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. And one more thing before we go, you can now enjoy the Consider This newsletter. We still help you break down a major story of the day, but you'll also get to know our producers and hosts and some moments of joy from the All Things Considered team. You can sign up at npr.org slash consider this newsletter. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Sommers.