Refugee status should never be a barrier to people fulfilling their sporting potential.

To make this a reality, we work alongside Olympic Solidarity which ensures that the Olympic dream is a goal everyone can aim for. Together we focus on refugees but Olympic Solidarity also provides assistance to thousands of athletes globally who are in need of help due to inequalities in access to sport.

Through the Refugee Athletes Support programme, we make sure National Olympic Committees - the committees who prepare national teams for the Olympic Games – have the opportunity to support refugee athletes living in their host countries.

The IOC Refugee Olympic Team is a group of awe-inspiring athletes, representing a multitude of diverse refugee communities as one single team at the Olympic Games. Through their talent and determination, they send a message of hope to the 100 million forcibly displaced people around the world.

The very first IOC Refugee Olympic Team was created by the International Olympic Committee for the Olympic Games Rio 2016 to raise awareness of the magnitude of the global refugee crisis. Ten athletes, who originally hailed from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, competed alongside 11,000 fellow sportspeople in Brazil, and showed how refugees, when given the opportunity, will enrich the Olympic community and society at large.

Another team of brilliant athletes took part in Tokyo 2020, with 29 refugee athletes competing in 12 sports. They inspired the world with the strength of their human spirit for the second time. We are in no doubt that the third Refugee Olympic Team will achieve just the same in Paris 2024.