The Foundation and the Refugee Olympic Team, Princess of Asturias Award for Sports 2022

OVIEDO, 25 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Foundation and the Refugee Olympic Team have been awarded the 2022 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports, which was awarded this Wednesday at 12 noon at the Eurostars de la Reconquista Hotel in Oviedo.

Twenty-four nominations from 10 nationalities have chosen this award, the fourth of the eight international awards announced this year by the Princess of Asturias Foundation and which are celebrating their XLII edition.

The jury was made up of: Abel Antón Rodrigo (president); Theresa Zabell Lucas (secretary); Alejandro Blanco Bravo; Vicente del Bosque González; Emilio Butragueño Santos; Miguel Carballeda Pineiro; Maria Paz Corominas Guerin; Joaquin Folch-Rusiñol Corachán; Juan Ignacio Gallardo Tomé; Patricia Garcia Rodriguez; Vicente Jimenez Navas; Santiago Nolla Zayas; Edurne Pasaban Lizarribar; Dove of the Cañadas River; Albert Sáez Casas; Alberto Suarez Laso.

This candidacy has been proposed by Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs, Vice President of the International Olympic Committee. It has been supported, among others, by Pau Gasol, 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports, and Roxana Maracineanu, former delegate minister attached to the French Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports.

The Refugee Olympic Foundation and the Refugee Olympic Team, created by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) _Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 1991_ in 2017 and 2015, respectively, their objective, in the words of Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, is to be "a symbol of hope for all the refugees in the world", to raise awareness about one of the most important crises facing the international community and to use sport as a way for humanitarian aid, cooperation and development of people affected by conflicts at the international level.

The Olympic Refugee Foundation was created by the IOC, in collaboration with UNHCR, in 2017, with the commitment to support the protection and sporting and personal development of displaced athletes, beyond the Olympic events. The Foundation works with international organizations, private sector companies, non-governmental organizations and other foundations to establish and promote cooperative programs through sport.

Protecting young people from violence and social exclusion, promoting access to education, health (with special attention to mental health in its latest initiatives) and sports practice are, among other purposes, the main lines of the strategy of work of the twelve programs that the Foundation has launched since its creation, and from which around two hundred thousand young people have already benefited.

These projects have been developed in eight countries: Colombia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Turkey and Uganda. With the goal of reaching a million young people benefited by 2024, it continues to develop programs.

This year 2022 has launched, together with the French Ministry of Sports, the 'Terrains d'Avenir' project, to help young refugees in the Gallic country, and prepares others in countries such as Spain or the Netherlands. The Foundation also promotes the creation of networks and collaboration agreements that help implement its vision, such as the Sport Refugees Coalition, in which more than eighty members participate, or the Olympic Refuge Foundation Think Tank, made up of international experts from around the world. academics, the health sector, members of non-governmental organizations and refugees who analyze and adjust the work of the Foundation and the role of sport as a tool for humanitarian aid.

Thomas Bach is Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Directors and Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is its Vice Chairman. The Foundation is also responsible for the Refugee Olympic Team.

The Refugee Olympic Team (officially known by its French acronym, EOR) is a delegation that participates in the Olympic Games, made up of athletes who are refugees due to any conflict worldwide.

It was created by the IOC in 2015, when it asked the different national committees to identify, in collaboration with UNHCR, refugee athletes whose sporting level had the potential to qualify for the Games, in order to offer them the possibility of doing so through of the funding provided by Olympic Solidarity scholarships, an IOC aid project for athletes.

The team has the same consideration as any other that participates in the sporting event. The EOR participated for the first time in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games. Of the forty-three pre-selected candidates, a list of ten athletes was finally set to form the team, who came from Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria and Sudan. South, and participated in athletics, judo and swimming.

Judoka Popole Misenga, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was their flag bearer at the opening ceremony. The flag that represents the EOR is the Olympic flag. On June 8, 2021, the list of team members for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic) was approved.

The list was made up of twenty-nine athletes from thirteen national committees, chosen from a first pre-selection of fifty-five, who competed in twelve disciplines. Yusra Mardini (Syrian swimmer) and Tachlowini Gabriyesos (Eritrean marathoner) were the flag bearers at the opening ceremony and Iranian taekwondo player Kimia Alizadeh won the bronze medal in her discipline.

The Princess of Asturias Award for Sports is awarded to "the trajectories that, through the promotion, development and improvement of sport and through solidarity and commitment, have become an example of the possibilities that the practice of sports entails for the benefit of human beings".