Paris 2024 canoe sprint: IOC Refugee Olympic Team athlete Saeid Fazloula bows out in quarter-finals after memorable performance
After progressing past the first round, IOC Refugee Olympic Team athlete Saeid Fazloula was eliminated in the canoe sprint men's K-1 1000m quarter-finals at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Wednesday (7 August).
Fazloula, who also competed at Tokyo 2020, was proud of his performance at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, and noted the greater significance of his participation.
"It's amazing to be here for a second time, I think I did a good race," he said after.
"The fact is, I paddle - for just more than 120 million refugees around the world, and that makes me happy to give help. I will just say, 'Keep going, you can do it if you want'."
Reflecting on how his sport, and the Refugee Team have developed over the past three years, he said:
"In Tokyo, I was the first-ever refugee canoe athlete. And we have four here now - one athlete (in) slalom and three with me (in sprint). That makes me happy.
"We are all family. We just say we can get together with different languages, religions, skin colours. We can get together if we want.
"This message is to you all - if we can do it, you can do it too."
Fazloula was forced to flee his homeland in 2015, and began a new life in Germany where his coach and training group helped him settle in.
He won silver at the Asian Games in Korea in 2014 and finished 8th at the World Championships and 11th at the European Championships in 2018.