People started to pray. "For a whole day we didn't know what had happened to him." From Syria to Rio: refugee Yusra Mardini targets Olympic swimming spot The 18-year-old is hoping to make the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Athletes team only … As the poster girl for the Olympic refugee team, Yusra became an international celebrity. A swimmer she is. Almost every morning, a Syrian girl with a winning smile takes a deep breath and dives into the Olympic swimming pool on the outskirts of Berlin. (CNN) It took Yusra Mardini a long time to come around to the notion of being a refugee. And at present, there is no indication that the IOC will repeat the experiment of allowing a refugee team at the next Olympics. An assistant coach, Khamis Agear, is also from Syria. Menu. Yusra Mardini es una nadadora olímpica y miembro del primer equipo olímpico de atletas refugiados, que participó en los Juegos Olímpicos de Río 2016. https://www.marieclaire.com.au/yusra-mardini-swimming-olympics One of the most inspiring athletes of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil was Yusra Mardini. You may have seen Yusra Mardini at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Mardini and her fellow swimmersâ efforts prevented their small dinghy from capsizing, which saved the lives of the 20 people onboard. LA 2028; Milano Cortina 2026 . But life was not as simple as swim practice for young Yusra. She was natural, funny and heartfelt, and she had an incredible story. Now Hollywood wants to tell her story. Yusra Mardini might currently be training twice a day, every day, for two hours, in the run up to the Tokyo Olympics, but she didn't always like swimming. Born in Damascus, Syria, in 1998, Mardini learned to swim with her father at age four, and by 2012, she had participated in the World Championships in Istanbul. Yusra Mardini is a Syrian refugee swimmer who … It’s not clear which country Yusra might represent at the Tokyo Olympics – she does not yet have German nationality and it will be dfficult for her to get into the very competitive German team. “I thought, ‘If I am with the refugee team, people are going to feel pity for me,’” she says. Olympic refugee team member Yusra Mardini prepares to swim laps Thursday at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium ahead of the Rio Olympics. Yusra Mardini fled Syria almost a year ago and is now part of a special refugee team at the the Olympic Games in Rio.. Mardini, only eighteen years old, was born in a Christian family of Damascus , where she stood out for its excellent academic results and started to swim, with the support of the Syrian Olympic … “We offered them $500, just for water or juice, but they said they were not allowed to sell to us.”. The refugees each had to pay $1500 for the 10-kilometre journey to the Greek island of Lesbos. Born in Syria in 1998, Yusra Mardini knows the meaning of hard. She has met the Pope and Barack Obama. After four weeks I said to her, ‘Our goal must be the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,’ ” he told UNHCR. She is proud to be the youngest Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR. There were five women at the 2016 Rio Olympics waiting to ace the 100 meters butterfly but there was one who was special. When the motor on their dangerously overcrowded boat stalled off the coast of Turkey, Yusra and her older sister, Sarah, swam for more than three hours in the churning seas, pushing the boat towards the Greek islands. “But I was thinking about the children on the boat more than me. They waited four days, with almost no food and little water. Anis was 25 years old at the time of the Rio Olympics. Yusra Mardini (Arabic: يسرى مارديني; born 5 March 1998) is a Syrian swimmer currently living in Hamburg, Germany. They were shocked when they saw their boat: an inflatable dinghy meant for six people. Then Yusra's father disappeared. One man jumped into the sea, so the boat would sit higher in the water. “The war was hard," says Yusra Mardini, a Syrian refugee living in Germany. “She is a very positive person with tremendous energy and will.” With Hollywood clamouring, Heinkelein negotiated the deal to bring Yusra’s story to the screen. Yusra’s father, Ezzat, worked as a swimming coach at a sports complex near their home in Damascus. Syrian professional swimmer who is recognized for having been a member of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team. “Her progress has been fascinating,” says Spannekrebs, who has become something of an older brother to Yusra and now supervises her training. “I thought it would be a real shame if I drowned,” Yusra said with typical nonchalance after her story became known, “because I am a swimmer.”. If four years ago Refugee Olympic Team swimmer Yusra Mardini was a wide-eyed first-time Olympian at Rio 2016, the Syrian native, now 22, is a self-assured international athlete, best-selling author, United Nations ambassador and so much more. There would be 20 of them, including an Iraqi woman with a baby and two young children. She also still has her eye on Tokyo 2020 in 12 months’ time. From Syria to Rio: refugee Yusra Mardini targets Olympic swimming spot The 18-year-old is hoping to make the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Athletes team only a … Daraya was heavily bombed and, after government paramilitaries moved in, an estimated 1000 people were killed in three days. (Yusra and Sarah’s trip was financed with family savings.) She survived thanks to her swimming skills – and, just a year later, competed at the Rio Olympics. Yusra and Sarah queued for two days for a temporary residence permit, which allowed them to buy a ticket on a ferry to the mainland. In fact, she hated it. Yusra, six at the time, recalls that as the moment she decided that she too wanted to be an Olympic champion. “If I am going to, Growing up, life in Syria was good for a family like the Mardinis. “Then I realised that it was an opportunity that would not come to a lot of people.” Yusra didn’t expect to win a medal, and she was knocked out in the second round. After reaching Europe, Mardini and her sister made their way to Berlin, Germany, where they found their new home and Mardini picked up her swimming training at the swimming club Wasserfreunde Spandau 04. After 15 minutes, the engine stopped and waves threatened to capsize it. “But Yusra’s aerobic level was very bad and she had lost her feeling for the water.” The club let the sisters train and offered them accommodation, so they were able to move out of the camp. She became the youngest Goodwill Ambassador to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in April 2017 as a champion of refugees all over the world. She became as powerful a magnet for the world’s media as the Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai had been. “But I was thinking about the children on the boat more than me. Olympic refugee team member Yusra Mardini prepares to swim laps Thursday at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium ahead of the Rio Olympics. “Without swimming,” says Yusra Mardini, an Olympic athlete from Syria, “I don’t think I survive.” For Mardini, 18, this statement is no emotional exaggeration. Hundreds of refugees were waiting in the sweltering heat, corralled by gangs of armed smugglers. Out of Syria’s prewar population of around 21 million, 5.5 million people are now refugees; more than 12 million have been internally displaced. “Yes, we are refugees, but we are normal human beings,” Yusra, 20, tells me she wants people to know. As she dives again into the water, her babyish face hidden behind goggles, Yusra uses the memory of that traumatic journey and the bloody civil war from which she escaped to power her dreams. Almost every morning, a Syrian girl with a winning smile takes a deep breath and dives into the Olympic swimming. 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