The portraits of all 10 members of the first Olympic refugee team now have a permanent place on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian artists Rodrigo Sini and Cety dedicated a spray- painted mural on Thursday Aug 18,2016 to the refugee athletes as a way of highlighting their importance.
“For me, they’re already gold medal champions,” Sini said while taking a short break from putting the finishing touches on the mural, which covers a 100 square metres (1,076 square feet) high and wide wall on Olympic Boulevard in the redeveloped port district.
“There is no medal that justifies the pleasure or the weight each of them carries, for the story each of them has, for the determination and courage they all had when they had to abandon their home countries to restart their lives somewhere else.”
The team of six men and four women includes athletes competing in swimming, judo and athletics. Five are from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from the Democratic Republic of Congo and one from Ethiopia.
During the opening ceremony on Aug. 5, 2016 the refugee athletes marched into the games to thunderous applause under the Olympic flag.
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