Rio Olympics: Refugee Team

By Ed Piper

I read about the Refugee Team that will compete in the Rio Olympics beginning next week in the newest edition of Sports Illustrated. There was something in the article that tugged at me.

After all, right out of college, speaking no Spanish--I didn't know it was "Buenos dias" for "Good morning", intead of "Buenas dias", when I boarded a bus in Tijuana for Mexico City--I covered the Pan Am Games for the English-language newspaper in the capital, The News. That takes being adventurous and willing to try anything.

To answer the question I just brought up, how did I manage to report on sports, when all the people at the venues and on the host teams only spoke Spanish? I pantomimed a lot, I coaxed and cajoled, I used the Spanish I remembered from Senorita Sanchez in junior high: "Hola, Paco. Que tal? Como estas?"

To get the starting lineup for the Mexican men's basketball team (they didn't have women's basketball yet), I somehow communicated to the head coach that I needed the "cinco" (five) players who would start. On a notepad, I wrote down each of their names.

Now, back to the refugees: If you haven't read about them, these Olympians are from countries where they had to flee for their lives. The runners from South Sudan, a new country which has fallen into chaos, don't even have running times good enough to qualify under the normal standard to compete in the games.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which implemented the Refugee Team and chose the members, passed these athletes through without qualifying times. Instead, the IOC has provided these selected athletes with professional training, nutrition guidance, and other care to help prepare them.

What do I think of athletes being allowed in the games that don't meet the minimum standards for their event? I think it's great. The article explained that the purpose of the Refugee Team, which will march in the Opening Ceremonies just in front of the host Brazilian team, is to represent the hundreds of thousands of refugees across the globe who have no country and no rootedness.

"We may not win our events, but we want to represent all refugees to give them hope in their present situation," was sort of the theme of the story.

My mother enjoyed watching the Olympic Games. My brother and I, who both participated in sports growing up, are naturals for viewing the games, which spread out over two and a half weeks beginning August 3. (The Parade of Nations takes place Fri., Aug. 5, during the Opening Ceremonies.)

At the Pan Am Games in Mexico City in 1975, I boarded the bus carrying the Mexican torch carriers in the Opening Ceremonies. (The Pan Am Games are kind of a smaller Western Hemisphere version of the Olympics.) I remember the young people on board being pretty excited, effusing all over the place. In my resulting story, I didn't have lengthy quotes or anything from those runners. I just described--in English for The News' English-speaking readers--what I saw and heard as the torch carriers celebrated getting a role in the ceremony.

One lesson I still carry from those Pan Am Games, the only Pan Am Games I have ever attended, is that my country, the USA, is a pretty good country. This was at the tail end of the Vietnam War era, and being young and activist-minded during college, I had criticized my country for carrying on the war and violence and so forth.

The specific incident during the games wasn't pleasant, but it is still vivid in my mind. During one of the basketball games involving the U.S. team, populated then with college players including Leon Douglas, I was shocked to hear Mexican fans hurl the "n" word with a Spanish accent from the stands toward the African-Americans on the team. I had never heard such a thing. It was straight out of the Old South.

But the positive thing for me was realizing, with all its faults as the number-one country in the world, the U.S. has many strengths, too. You don't hear people hurling the "n" word toward players at a basketball game. Kind of simple, but a concrete lesson for me. It made me, as a young, idealistic 21-year-old, rethink some of my preconceived notions.

The basketball game involving Leon Douglas wasn't the only factor during my 14 months living and teaching English in Mexico City in leading me toward different conclusions about my country. But it was one of them.

By the way, after my teaching hours each weekday, I covered different sports events at the Pan Am Games for a total of 51 work hours. I got paid $1 an hour by The News for a whopping total of $51 (US).