Daily Times July 15, 2021 LAUSANNE: The Tokyo 2020 Games will see 29 displaced athletes living in 14 countries around the world compete as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. The squad arrives in Japan on Wednesday. Here is a look at the history of the team, its debut at the 2016 Games, its growing place in the Olympic movement and the path towards Tokyo 2020: Creation: Marathon runner Guor Marial, a refugee living in the United States, competed at London 2012 as an independent athlete, having made the qualifying time. He had escaped Sudan, was not a US national and his newly-independent South Sudan homeland did not yet have an Olympic committee. Following a global refugee crisis that saw millions of people displaced around the world, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach announced the creation of the new team at the United Nations General Assembly in October 2015. It first took part in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics. Prospective competitors are supported by scholarships. Some $2 million has been invested in refugee athletes since Rio. The team’s performance in Rio triggered the launch in 2017 of the Olympic Refuge Foundation. It aims to provide one million young people affected by displacement with access to sport by 2024.