Farida Abaroge jogged across the athletics track in Normandy in the early morning light. “When you’ve known hard times, mental and emotional fitness is just as important as physical form,” she said as she trained for the 1500m at the Paris Olympics. Abaroge is part of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Refugee Team, which represents more than 100 million displaced people. “This team is like a family,” she said.
When Abaroge, 30, fled her native Ethiopia eight years ago because of persecution, she was a karate black belt, footballer and would-be track runner who dreamed of one day competing at the Games but could not see how. Her gruelling search for safety lasted more than a year, taking her to Sudan, then to an Egyptian refugee camp, then to Libya, where she was imprisoned, and finally to France in 2017 where she was granted asylum. Physically wrecked from hardship, lack of food and stomach surgery that had gone wrong en route, Abaroge made an astonishing return to sport, taking up athletics.
