At the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in October 2015, confronted with the global refugee crisis that has seen an estimated 68.5 million people in the world displaced, IOC President Thomas Bach announced the creation of the Refugee Olympic Team – the first of its kind – to take part in the Olympic Games Rio 2016.
Ten months on from the announcement, the 10 athletes, who originally hailed from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were competing alongside 11,000 fellow athletes in Brazil, sending a message of hope and inclusion to millions of refugees around the world and inspiring the world with the strength of their human spirit.
In October 2018, with two years to go to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the IOC Session have decided that there will be a Refugee Olympic Team for Tokyo 2020 and mandated Olympic Solidarity to establish the conditions of participation and define the identification and selection process for a team in Tokyo. These elements will be carried out in close collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, the National Olympic Committees, the International Sport Federation and Tokyo 2020.
The announcement of the Tokyo 2020 Refugee Olympic Team members will be made in 2020.