A six-athlete Refugee Youth Olympic Team is making history at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal, the first time a refugee team has competed at the Youth Olympics.
The athletes, based in camps and communities in Kenya and Uganda, are competing in athletics, judo and taekwondo alongside roughly 2,700 young athletes from around the world, according to the International Olympic Committee.
The team was created by the International Olympic Committee and is managed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation, with support from World Athletics, the Kenyan and Ugandan national Olympic committees, and UNHCR. It has equal numbers of young women and men and is led by South Sudanese refugee and former Olympic athlete Yiech Pur Biel.
16-year-old Ugandan sprinter Florence Masumbe, who competes in the 200 meters, said that she is proud to represent refugees and hopes to win a medal, while showing that displaced young people can achieve at the highest level.
The Refugee Olympic Team first appeared at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Dakar 2026, running from 31 October 31 to November 13 across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly, is also the first Olympic sporting event held on African soil.
