'The boat's motor gave up. Anis got ready to swim. He looked from child to child. 'Who would I save?' Syrian refugee swimmer Rami Anis on his terrifying journey to the Olympics

Rami Anis, 25, currently lives in Ghent Belgium and will compete in the Olympic Games as part of the Refugee Team
Rami Anis, 25, currently lives in Ghent Belgium and will compete in the Olympic Games as part of the Refugee Team Credit: Rick Pushinsky

Rami Anis rolled to one side of his single, carelessly made bed, then to the other. He looked beyond the bare walls to the window ledge, which was strewn with vitamin packets. He glanced down at his chunky black watch. It was 3am. 

Sometime tomorrow – today now – he would learn whether it had been worth it. All that pain in the water, all that suffering on the road. For almost all his 25 years – at least, for as long as he could remember – he had longed to swim beneath those rings.

Back in Syria, he had been the top swimmer for six years in a row; he had been a shoo-in for London 2012. Then came the war. 

Now, here in Belgium, there was hope again. Seeing those images of overladen boats taking on water, of razor-wire fences, of a toddler washed up like driftwood, the International Olympic Committee had announced it would pick its own team for the first time.

It would comprise refugees who represented no nation but embodied the Olympic spirit. At the opening ceremony, the host nation’s team always parades around the stadium last. This year, in Rio, the refugee team will march just before them. They will walk out behind the Olympic flag.

As he forced himself to sleep, Anis knew he might make it. He had been shortlisted in his discipline, the 100m butterfly. But 43 refugees were on that shortlist and only 10 would be picked. Today, June 3, he would find out who.  He turned over again and tried to dream.

It is hard to say when Anis’s dream began. Perhaps it was at the age of 14, when he began training every day at a pool close to the family home in Aleppo. Back then, he used to watch YouTube videos of Michael Phelps’s races, trying to copy every little detail. He replayed some of them hundreds of times. 

Or perhaps it was much earlier, at the age of three, when Anis first discovered the water. His uncle, a former local swimming champion, took him to the pool.

As soon as he climbed in, he knew how to float. The other toddlers began to cry; Anis only smiled. ‘I loved the water,’ he would later say. ‘It was irresistible.’ 

Rami Anis: Swimming in Ghent, Belgium (June)
Rami Anis: Swimming in Ghent, Belgium (June) Credit: Rick Pushinsky

Either way, his dream was firmly established long before the checkpoints sprang up and  the kidnappings began.

That was in 2011, and, though by now a full-time athlete, Anis was still living at home, in the flat he shared with his father, a civil engineer called Osama, his mother, Mayada, and his brother, Mohammad. They called him Rambo.

Now 20, he knew he would soon be called  up for national service. ‘I don’t know how to fight,’ he fretted. ‘I only know how to use my body to swim.’ 

By October that year, he had made up his mind. He threw two pairs of trousers and two T-shirts in a trolley case and followed his other brother, Eyad to Istanbul. He said farewell at the flat, and at the pool.

Years later, he was asked if he packed anything of emotional significance.

‘My swimming gear,’ he said. 

Lone refugee swimmer

For four years, Anis trained in Turkey. As a refugee, he was not allowed to compete. His teammates flew around the world for meets; he stayed behind  in Istanbul, where the rest of his family eventually joined him. He was in peak shape but had nobody to race against, no way to prove himself. 

Last summer, when his coach left the club, so did Anis. He could not bear starting over again. ‘I want to stop swimming,’ he told the club manager. ‘I’ll try to find something else  in my life.’ 

In the following months, as he grappled with his future, he watched news footage of the flimsy boats his countrymen were taking to Europe and read Facebook updates from friends who had made the journey.

In August, his father, now 55, made the crossing himself. From Belgium, he encouraged his son to join him.

Anis was uncertain. Before deciding, he went on the internet: he looked up the Belgian swimming records and compared them to his own times. He was satisfied. ‘After four years, I had to take a step forward,’ he says.

Mohammad, his younger brother, decided to join him. They kissed their crying mother in Istanbul and set off for the coast, from where they planned to take a boat to the Greek island of Samos.

That first night, the water was too rough; they stayed in the hotel the smugglers had booked for them. 

The next night, at 3am, Anis slung a bag over his shoulders and pulled on his trunks. ‘I prepared myself,’ he says, ‘just in case.’  

Competing in the men's 100m freestyle heat at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou
Competing in the men's 100m freestyle heat at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou Credit: David Gray / Reuters

At their Istanbul apartment, his mother stayed up, waiting for his call. In a Belgian refugee camp, his father was awake too. He asked Anis to text him their whereabouts every time they moved and to call him when he could.

By the light of the moon, Anis made out a black inflatable dinghy. Forty other refugees were crammed in, half of them children. He and his brother squeezed beside them.

To begin with, the sea was calm enough, the water familiar. Then, as the boat drifted further from the shore, the waves grew taller. Soon they were 5ft tall. One broke against the boat, then another.

That was when the motor gave up. The water crashed against the dinghy, spinning it round and round. In each direction, land was more than three miles away.

There were no other boats around, just the moon and the water.  The other refugees yelled for someone to do something. Still the dinghy span round.

Rami Anis with his brother Mohammad in Belgium
On safe ground: Rami Anis with his brother, Mohammad, in Belgium Credit: Rick Pushinsky

‘Don’t worry,’ Anis implored. ‘Let’s sing a song.’ Nobody sang. 

Anis got ready to swim: it would be tough going, but he thought he could make it. He looked from child to child. ‘Who would I save?’ he asked himself. 

He decided not to call his father, not then. He did not want him to hear the screams. 

Another wave struck. Anis looked down at the water and prayed. 

On foreign shores

When at last he reached Belgium, Anis wanted to forget the dinghy, which had finally overcome the waves. He wanted to forget how they had sat for an hour and a half on the shore, just feeling the ground; to forget the next 10 days of struggling forward by coach, train and foot. Greece to Macedonia to Serbia. Croatia to Hungary to Austria; Germany then Belgium. He remembered it all.

Through the freezing nights and the long journeys to unknown destinations, he had often thought of the pool. He longed to get back to it, to the water he knew.

He found it in the Belgian city of Ghent. There, he came across Carine Verbauwen, who had been an Olympian in her teens. A Belgian sports personality of the year in the 1970s, the 54-year-old still goes to the pool every day, to oversee her protégés. Once he was given refugee status, Anis joined their number.

The water was familiar, but his exertions were not. By now, he had been out of training for six months. He was 15lb overweight and hardly spoke English, let alone Dutch, Verbauwen’s language of choice.

Still, his ambition was undimmed. When a friend told him about the refugee team, he applied immediately. Not just a competition: the Olympic Games! 

When he made the shortlist, Verbauwen gave him a pep talk. ‘If you really want to have a shot, I cannot have mercy on you,’ she said. ‘You will have to train until it hurts, and you cannot say, “Please help me.” If you drown,  you drown.’ 

To be picked, he had to get as close as possible to the usual qualifying time. They both knew what this meant: 54 seconds (his previous best had been 55 seconds). Verbauwen entered him in a series of meets across Belgium. Then their work began.

Anis Rami competed internationally when living in Syria
Anis Rami competed internationally when living in Syria Credit: Getty Images

Antwerp, February: 58.45 seconds

Anis swam nine times a week, often six miles a day. In France, Olympians train at a dedicated centre, with physiotherapists and psycho- logists on hand; Anis swam in a roped-off  lane at a public swimming pool.

The children  splashing about in the shallow end had no  idea that they were sharing the water with a  prospective Olympian. 

By now, Anis was spending 17 hours a week in the water. And it hurt. ‘If you want to gain  muscles, you have to tear them,’ Verbauwen liked to say. If anyone touched him, he would recoil.

‘I feel like my heart is going to burst,’ he told Verbauwen.

Ghent, March: 57.55 seconds

On a typical day, he woke up at 6am for his first session in the pool. After that, he went to a compulsory Dutch lesson for three hours. Then he changed again and returned to the pool.

When he was not in the water, he was at the gym. He bench-pressed 14st. He took whey protein and drank six litres a day: five of water, one of orange juice. 

One day, Verbauwen asked him to do yet another session. ‘I cannot do this,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry,’ replied Verbauwen, ‘but you have to.’ 

Ghent, April: 56.37 seconds

Verbauwen drove Anis to Brussels for a two-hour meeting with officials from the IOC. They quizzed him about his medals, about how his training was going. Back at the pool, she tried a new tack. ‘You’re in Rio right now,’ she told Anis.

He pictured the crowd, waiting silently for his race. He cut through the water so fast his muscles yelped. 

Antwerp, May: 55.86 seconds

Anis spoke his first words of Dutch to Verbauwen. ‘Ik ben moe,’ he said: I’m tired.

Rami Anis swims to win his heat during the men's 100m butterfly swimming heats at the 15th Asian Games in Doha, 2006
Rami Anis swims to win his heat during the men's 100m butterfly swimming heats at the 15th Asian Games in Doha, 2006 Credit: Jason Reed / Reuters

Dream to reality

At last, it was June 3. Thomas Bach, the IOC president, gave a press conference in Lausanne. ‘These refugees have no home, no team, no flag, no national anthem,’ he told the reporters. ‘We will offer them a home in the Olympic Village together with all the athletes of the world.’ 

The names of the chosen athletes were handed out to the reporters. There were five track athletes, who had fled South Sudan for Kenya. There were two judokas, who escaped the Democratic Republic of Congo for Brazil. There was an Ethiopian marathon runner in Luxembourg. There was another Syrian swimmer, a woman, Yusra Mardini, who was training in Germany. And there was Rami Anis. 

As soon as he heard, Anis called Verbauwen. ‘I’m in, I’m in, I’m in!’ he shouted down the line. ‘I can go!’

That night, he posted a new Facebook status. ‘Wait for us, Rio,’ he wrote, ‘we are coming.’

One week later, Verbauwen drove Anis to Brussels. Outside the Belgian Olympic Committee headquarters, the bricks were decorated with the Olympic rings and an advertisement for the national team. ‘It’s a long way to Rio,’ it read. 

Inside, Anis sat between Verbauwen and a translator. In front of him, there were four microphones, then row upon row of reporters.

Yusra Mardini, another member of the refugee team, at a training camp in Berlin
Yusra Mardini, another member of the refugee team, at a training camp in Berlin Credit: Getty Images

‘I am going to speak in English as a courtesy to the international press,’ said Verbauwen.

Anis clasped two sheets of A5 paper, handwritten in Arabic. He had written a speech the previous night. When his turn came, he read it out, looking towards Verbauwen rather than the reporters.

‘I would like to introduce myself,’ the translator echoed, in English. ‘My name is Rami Anis. I am 25 years old and I come from the broken, wounded Syria, from the town Aleppo, which is considered the most destructive city in the world.’ 

Paulo Amotun Lokoro is another member of the refugee team. Originally from South Sudan he is a 1500m runner
Paulo Amotun Lokoro is another member of the refugee team. Originally from South Sudan he is a 1500m runner Credit: REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

When Verbauwen spoke, she was realistic. His times were good, she said, but not ‘world-class’, ‘not semi-final’ level. ‘But I know, for him, it is his personal best. I also know that if he stayed in Syria, if there was no war, he would have been in the Olympic Games. I think it is justice that he goes.’ 

Another week went by. Anis, as ever, was at the pool. In a cafe overlooking the water, he explained his target for Rio: to swim under 55 seconds. That would not only meet the Olympic standard, it would also be his personal best.

He has always wanted to reach this time; now that he is on a team representing refugees, he knows he must. 

‘We were accepted into a team that the whole world is going to be watching, so we have to give all we have,’ he said. ‘I would like the world to know that refugees have potential. They are doctors and engineers; they are people with talent. If only given the chance, they will do something with it.’ 

Athletes from South Sudan who qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the refugee team
Athletes from South Sudan who qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the refugee team Credit: REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Now that he is used to the water again, now he has slipped into the comfort of old routines, he does not always picture that crowd at Rio when he swims. Instead, when he turns his head, he sees his friends from Aleppo swimming alongside him. Now, he says, ‘The swimming pool is my home.’ 

After he told his story, he left the cafe to change. He slung a bag over his shoulders and pulled on his trunks. Putting the bag by the side of the pool, he stretched out his arms, spread his feet and dived in. For a moment or two, he disappeared beneath the surface. Then, like it always did, the water held him.

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