First she swam to Greece, now she’s about to swim at the Rio Games.
Yusra Mardini is one of 10 athletes competing under the Olympic flag as part of the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team. The 18-year-old will be joining athletes from Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We don't know the same language, we are not from same countries, but the flag united us together,” the swimmer told CTV News.
Mardini, who now lives in Germany, fled Syria with her elder sister Sarah last August. Their family home, located in a Damascus suburb, was destroyed in a bloody massacre at the dawn of the vicious Syrian civil war.
From Syria, the sisters travelled to Lebanon then Turkey where they met with smugglers who agreed to take them to Greece. But in the Mediterranean, their dinghy’s engine died and the flimsy inflatable began taking on water in rough seas.
Mardini, who represented Syria at the FINA World Swimming Championships in 2012, quickly jumped overboard with her sister. For more than three hours, the pair swam, pushing the boat until getting it and its 20 other asylum seekers to safety on the Greek island of Lesbos.
“When I was on the boat, everyone was praying on the boat and they were telling me, ‘You are a very courageous girl,’” Mardini recalls. “I said, ‘Shut up now -- leave me alone now.’”
Mardini finally made it to Germany in September 2015. Soon after, the teenager began training at a Berlin swimming club. In Rio, she will be competing in the 100 metre freestyle as well as the 100 metre butterfly.
“I’ll be honored, I’ll be proud, I’ll be happy,” Mardini says of marching in the opening ceremonies as millions watch from their homes. “I'll have the bang in my stomach -- because this is a great feeling.”
With files from CTV’s Omar Sachedina in Rio de Janeiro
