South Sudan refugee Lokonyen using Olympic qualification to inspire others
South Sudan refugee runner aiming to inspire in Tokyo
JOHANNESBURG, June 17 (ANA) – South Sudan refugee Rose Nathike Lokonyen is hoping to inspire others with her unique story and participation in the Tokyo Olympics starting next month.
The 28-year-old women’s 800m athlete was the flag-bearer for the refugee team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and she is in the best position to know how competing at the quadrennial showpiece can inspire a new generation of athletes.
“All the countries, including the president, were cheering for the refugees,” she told World Athletics of her experience as the flag bear in Rio. “(I thought), ‘if the world loves us then we can give hope to other refugees’. Interacting with other nationalities around the world was a great experience.”
At the Rio games, Lokonyen finished seventh in her 800m heat in 2:16.64, and the following year she made her World Athletics Championships debut in London, competing for the World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team.
Two years later she lowered her Personal Best to 2:13.39 at the Doha World Championships, and now she’s patiently putting in the preparations to go quicker again in Tokyo.
She trains six days a week, two to three times a day, and her workload is the usual mix of interval training on a track, hill runs and long runs over the rolling landscape of Ngong.
As it was for most athletes, her routine descended into chaos during the pandemic.
“We (had) to go back to the refugee town, all the camps in Nairobi were closed due to Covid-19,” she says. “But we did not lose hope. In life you have to overcome all the challenges. The pandemic affected the entire world and it could not stop me from doing what I love.”
When Lokonyen was just eight-years-old in 2002, her village was attacked during the Second Sudanese Civil War.
“The other tribe came at night to attack our village, our houses and some of my neighbours lost their lives because they couldn’t escape, I lost some of my friends,” she says. “I and my parents and some other neighbours managed to escape that night to a nearby town, walking in the bushes for two days.”
They eventually got a lift in the back of a lorry to the Kenyan border, where they waited for two weeks before being brought to the Kakuma refugee camp in northwest Kenya, where she grew up alongside her siblings and parents.
“I call it home,” she says. “We faced a lot of challenges but it’s a safe place. As long as you have that, you feel safe. We had to start a new life.” – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman
