Refugees will take part in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after the IOC on Tuesday said that it "would form a refugee team for the second consecutive Summer Games," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. IOC President Thomas Bach asked members of the Olympic body at its session in Buenos Aires to support the creation of a refugee team, "along the lines of the one that competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games." The members "responded with applause." Bach said that the IOC had "already identified a pool of more than 50 refugee athletes" and it was "necessary to keep the world aware of the plight of the tens of millions of refugees around the world." He added, "There is one unfortunate reason for the creation of this team. This is the fact that the reasons we created the first ever team still persist. We have altogether 68.5 million refugees in this world." There were no details provided on the final size or makeup of the team but Bach said that "the pool of potential athletes for the team could grow more." Bach: "Last time (for Rio), we were under very high time pressure. Now we have two years. We have already taken precaution ... and we have a pool of athletes in place. Already now we’re supporting 51 or 52 refugee athletes who we have identified" (REUTERS, 10/9).
