‘No home, no team, no flag’: a history of stateless athletes at the Olympics
In theory the Olympics are an occasion for each country to send its best athletes into the ring. But geopolitics are messy, with borders changing, power shifting, new nations emerging and collapsing every decade. This year, the International Olympic Committee has created a new team for a group of people with no nation: the Refugee Olympic Team.
“These refugees have no home, no team, no flag, no national anthem,” said IOC president Thomas Bach. Therefore, the “Olympic anthem will be played in their honour and the Olympic flag will lead them into the Olympic Stadium.” The athletes on the Refugee Olympic Team have been displaced from Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Modern refugees aren’t the first to compete without a country, however. Olympic history is rife with examples of stateless athletes, people from colonized nations competing on behalf of colonial powers, and competitors from places in limbo. The International Olympic Committee acknowledges roughly the same nations that the UN does, and even a few extras. Still, there have always been competitors whose origins don’t fit the standard definition of a country.
In 2012, for example, three athletes competed from Curaçao — formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, which dissolved in 2010. Curaçao wasn’t recognized by the International Olympic Committee, so they came as independent athletes. The same thing had happened in 2000, when four athletes represented East Timor, which was at that point transitioning to independence (it was recognized by the UN in 2002).
This tradition of letting quasi-stateless athletes compete under the Olympic Flag, instead of a single country’s flag, began in 1992, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was in tatters and 58 qualified Yugoslav athletes found themselves with no flag to fly. So the International Olympic Committee created a new “independent Olympic participants” category for them. That same year, twelve former USSR states — now suddenly post-Soviet countries, many without the infrastructure to get an Olympic committee together — built a coalition called the Unified Team. They, too, flew the Olympic Flag instead of a single nation’s flag. Eventually they would all go on to compete as independent nations.
Prior to 1992, athletes from nations not recognized by the Olympic Committee had two options: they could put together their own team and compete on behalf of a sovereign country, or they could transfer nationality. The latter often took the form of athletes from colonized territories competing on behalf of their colonizers — only if they were invited to, of course.
Indian athletes, for instance, went the first route. They put together their own teams, but played on behalf of the British Empire. They were represented by their colonial flag, which featured the Union Jack in the top left corner, and marched to “God Save the King.” This set-up was in place until India gained independence from British rule in 1947.
Meanwhile, competitors from less coordinated colonies like Algeria went the second route. Take, for instance, Boughera El Ouafi. Born in 1898 into French-occupied Algeria, El Ouafi’s running career began when he impressed a French military officer with his athletic abilities. He ran for France in the 1928 Olympics, winning gold. France was also represented by Algerian runners in the 1936, 1948, 1952, and 1956 Olympics. Algeria won independence from France in 1962.
Sovereign nations plucking athletes from the colonies was common throughout the early 20th century. And the practice continued even after most colonies gained independence, albeit taking a different form. Starting at the end of the colonial era, powerful countries began scouting and fast-tracking citizenship for prized athletes. In the last fifty years, write researchers Alun R. Hardman and Hywel Iowerth, most transfers of citizenship for Olympic athletes have been “between ex-colonial nations — mostly to a colonial power from a former colony (Morocco to France; Ukraine/Belarus/Uzbekistan to Russia; Cuba to Spain).”
This practice extends to the present day. Recent examples include Abdullah Behar, a Moroccan-born cross-country runner who competed for France in 2000; Yasser Gomes, a Cuban-born baseball player who competed for Spain in 2000; Mia Audina, an Indonesian-born badminton player who competed for the Netherlands in 2004; and Tatiana Navka, a Ukrainian-born ice skater who competed for Russia in 2006. These athletes are far from stateless — in fact, many end up with dual citizenship — but the practice is a holdover from a time when colonial superpowers enjoyed taking credit for the athletic prowess of their colonized subjects.
It’s much easier for athletes to get scouted, and subsequently naturalized, if they’re competing for a national team and therefore already in the global spotlight. In a world with 65 million displaced people and counting — including 10 million who have no recognized nationality whatsoever — many qualified athletes find the road to the Olympic games cut off. With the introduction of the independent athlete category first, and now the refugee team, the International Olympic Committee is changing that.
