Yiech Pur BIEL

Pur fled from Nasir, South Sudan, with his relatives in order to escape the war. He arrived in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2005, but his parents remained in Nasir, and he never returned to South Sudan. In 2015, he heard that the Tegla Loroupe Foundation was organising athletics trials in Kakuma. Pur took part in the trials, showed promising results, and was selected to join the Foundation.

He has been training at the Foundation ever since and was selected for the Olympic Games Rio 2016 as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. He is now living in the USA and graduated from Iowa Central Community College where he also trained. He is now a student-athlete at Drake University.

He was part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team Tokyo 2020 delegation as the athletes’ representative.

He is also a Board member of the Olympic Refuge Foundation and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. In 2022, he was elected as an IOC member.