Yusra Mardini
Swam for three hours pushing a sinking refugee boat, then swam at the Olympics a year later
Yusra Mardini grew up in Damascus, where her father was a swimming coach and had her in the pool from the age of three. She represented Syria at the world championships at 14. Then the civil war reached the suburbs. The roof of the training pool was hit, her home was destroyed, and in August 2015 she and her older sister Sara left with a group of others for Europe.
They reached the Turkish coast and paid smugglers for a place on an inflatable dinghy meant for six people. Twenty boarded. Partway across the Aegean the engine died and the boat began to take on water. Yusra, Sara and two others who could swim got into the sea and for around three hours pushed and pulled the boat towards Lesbos, in the dark, with people praying and being sick above them. Everyone survived.
From Greece the sisters walked and rode through the Balkans, were arrested in Hungary, and finally reached Berlin, where a translator connected Yusra to a swimming club. She had been in Germany for a few months when the International Olympic Committee announced the first Refugee Olympic Team for Rio in 2016. She won her heat in the 100 metres butterfly.
She swam again at the Tokyo Games and became the youngest ever goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency. A film about the sisters, The Swimmers, was released in 2022.