EOC Refugee Team boxer Farid Walizadeh on fighting at the European Games: “It feels like accepting refugees in Europe”
Walizadeh competed in the featherweight category at this year’s European Games in Poland as part of the EOC Refugee Team. The athlete, who fled the war in Afghanistan when he was only seven, is fighting to compete at Paris 2024 but also to inspire refugees across the world: “Everything is possible,” he says.
Boxing
When Farid Walizadeh is asked why he chose to compete in boxing - a sport renowned for being one of the most challenging at the Olympics - his answer is simple:
“My dreams,” the Afghanistan-born fighter, who competed just last week for the EOC Refugee Team at the 2023 edition of the European Games, replies.
In many ways, Walizadeh has been fighting all his life.
Separated from his family at age seven, he travelled by foot to escape war in Afghanistan, passing through Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Iran and Türkiye and spending time in prison and an orphanage before boxing came to his rescue at the UN Refugee Agency Centre in Istanbul.
Life was never easy and Walizadeh has little doubt that the challenges he faced could have left him walking down a darker path than the one he does today.
Sport, quite literally, changed his life
“I could be a drug addict or in any kind of bad area,” he told Olympics.com. “But when you do sport you get dedicated to the competition so you feel better and you’re wishing to change your life.”
Farid Walizadeh: “Boxing is a magical sport”
After settling in Portugal, Walizadeh found a new beginning - one filled with the hopes and dreams many other people his age harbour. He is studying architecture at University and making plans to forge a future career in the field
And alongside his academic endeavours, he has also risen to become one of the best boxers training in the country, competing in the featherweight division in the 2023 European Games and aiming to qualify for Paris 2024.
“It’s tough but it’s possible,” he says when asked how difficult it is to combine his studies with the discipline and training it takes to box at the elite level.
Yet it’s clear that boxing means more to him than just finding a pastime he loves. The sport has taught him values that have changed him as a person and helped him deal with the many difficult moments he has faced.
“Boxing is a magical sport, you can get courage when you don’t have it, you can be confident because you train with people," he explained.
“When you are traumatised or sad you can put that trauma, sadness or anger to the boxing bag without hurting yourself or nobody else.”
Farid Walizadeh fighting to inspire refugees across the world
Walizadeh’s dreams of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Games will need to wait a little longer. After a first round bye in the European Games he lost to Sweden’s Nebil Ibrahim in the round of 16, with only the winners of the 57kg quarter-finals booking a spot at the next Olympics.
But even his participation in Poland represented an important milestone. It was the first time a refugee team had competed at the European Games since its inception in 2015.
“It feels like accepting refugees in Europe,” Walizadeh replied when asked what it meant to him to compete in the Games.
His “biggest dream” is still to fight at the Olympics but he also knows he has another mission when it comes to inspiring displaced people across the world.
“For me it [my boxing] means hope and inspiring the people who lost their country and places forcibly, so it’s really important,” he explained, before adding, “My message would be to believe in yourself and work hard. Everything is possible.”