Following the success of Rio 2016, a Refugee Olympic Team (EOR) will participate for the second time, at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
Thanks to scholarships provided by the IOC, 55 promising refugee athletes from 13 countries are training hard in the hope of making it to the Tokyo 2020 Team, whose composition will be announced in 2021. The 55 Refugee Athlete Scholarship-holders come from 21 host countries – Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Portugal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom – and represent 12 sports: athletics, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, judo, karate taekwondo, shooting sport, swimming, weightlifting, and wrestling.
The Refugee Olympic Team official acronym is EOR, based on the French name: équipe olympique des réfugiés;
During the Opening Ceremony, the team will march with the Olympic flag in second position, immediately after Greece;
For all official representations of the team (including possible medal ceremonies), the Olympic flag will be raised and the Olympic anthem will be played;
The Refugee Olympic Team’s Chef de Mission is Tegla Loroupe. During the Olympic Games, she will be assisted by Deputy Chef de Mission Stephen Pattison from the UNHCR in Geneva.
Like all the other 206 NOCs taking part in the Olympic Games, the team will stay at the Olympic Village and get its own welcome ceremony at the Olympic Village;
The IOC will continue to support the refugee athletes even after the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.