There will be six of them. Four men and two women. Six athletes entered by World Athletics in the refugee team at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest (19-27 August). The governing body unveiled the list on Thursday 10 August, just over a week before the opening ceremony. Leading the way is a veteran of major competitions, two-time Olympian Anjelina Nadai Lohalith (photo above). Originally from South Sudan, but a refugee since childhood in the Kakuma camp in Kenya, she took part in the 1500m at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Games, and in the World Championships in 2017 and 2022, before moving on to the next distance, the 5,000m, for the current season. In Budapest, Anjelina Nadai Lohalith will team up with Tachlowini Gabriyesos, a refugee from Eritrea who will be competing in the marathon; Omar Hassan, who fled his native Ethiopia to take refuge in Denmark in 2014, will also be competing in the marathon; Mohammad Amin Alsalami, from Aleppo in Syria, now living in Germany, entered in the long jump (he is the first refugee athlete to compete in a technical discipline at the world championships); Fouad Idbafdil, a Moroccan specialist in the 3,000 m steeplechase; and finally Perina Lokure Nakang, only 20 years old, also from South Sudan, entered in the 800 m. For this edition of the World Outdoor Championships, the refugee team will be equipped and supported by Asics, one of World Athletics’ long-standing partners.
