Madrid, May 25 (BNA) The Olympic Refugee Foundation and the Refugee Olympic Team won the Princess of Asturias Sports Award for this year, the Spanish organization organizing the awards announced on Wednesday.
The award jury said its work to help refugee athletes “embeds the highest values of sport, such as integration, education, solidarity and humanity, and represents a message of hope to the world”.
The International Olympic Committee and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees set up the refugee team so that athletes forced by the conflict to leave their country can compete, reports the Associated Press.
The team competed for the first time in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games with 10 athletes from Ethiopia, Congo, Syria and South Sudan. For the Tokyo 2020 Games, the team had 29 members.
The Olympic Refugee Foundation was created to help displaced athletes pursue their careers and promote their development on a larger scale.
The jury of the Princess of Asturias Prize praised the winners for “giving them the opportunity for athletes in areas and places of conflict, which prevented them from performing their sporting and personal activities”. The institution and team were selected from a total of 24 candidates.
insult