Visit to Paris for the Board of the Olympic Refugee Foundation (ORF). Led by Thomas Bach, its members visited the French capital at the end of last week to discover ORF’s flagship program, Terrains d’Avenir. Its ambition is to give 7,000 displaced young people access to sport by 2025. Funded by the IOC, the United Nations and the French Ministry of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games, it is implemented by Kabubu, PLAY international, Emmaüs Solidarité, Ovale Citoyen, Fútbol Más and the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation, with the support of the City of Paris, the Paris 2024 OCOG, the CNOSF and UNHCR France. A nice gesture: Thomas Bach took the opportunity to personally invite 10 young displaced people involved in the Terrains d’Avenir program to attend a Paris 2024 Games event with him. During the Paris visit, the ORF board also announced the names of seven new refugee athletes with scholarships. They will try to be selected as part of the Olympic refugee team for Paris 2024. They represent six sports (table tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting, athletics, wrestling and badminton), four countries (Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan and DRC), and five National Olympic Host Committees (Austria, France, Germany, Kenya and Great Britain). This brings the total number of refugee athletes with scholarships to 53.
