Yiech Pur Biel to lead refugee team at Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics

Yiech Pur Biel is leading the first ever refugee team at the Youth Olympics in Senegal as their Chef de Mission, making history again after competing in the 800m for the inaugural Olympic refugee team at Rio 2016; the Games' opening ceremony takes place on Saturday.

Biel fled his home in South Sudan as a child and spent the rest of his childhood in the Kakuma refugee settlement in Kenya. When he started running, he had to compete barefoot and later took part in trials set up by the International Olympic Committee where he raced without shoes. "That's when I decided now it is time to depend on myself and also to start a new life with determination," he told BBC Newsbeat, adding the experience made him "believe that if I can work harder by myself, I can achieve." Hosted in Senegal, Saturday's opening ceremony will launch the first ever Olympic sporting event on African soil, and Africa is home to nearly 45 million displaced people out of almost 120 million globally.

A small delegation of six refugee athletes will join almost 3,000 competitors at the Dakar Games. Biel said the team hope to make their debut count but are also aiming to raise awareness that "refugees still need our help." He described the Youth Olympics for the refugee athletes as "a chance for them to tell the world and also to represent the population, especially the refugee population, in Africa." He added: "It's about representing the hope of young people who are living in a refugee camp, who have lost their motivation or their talent."

One member of the refugee team, Arno Yafunga Botay, lived at Kakuma after fleeing his home in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017 when he was six. Now 15, Botay will compete in judo and told BBC Sport Africa he has "promised to bring back a gold medal which I'd like to take to the refugee camp." He said: "I think if I achieve [a] gold medal, I can go there and teach them the value of judo."

Biel said being chosen as the team's Chef de Mission is an honour. "This is so important for them, to learn from my experience as an athlete and also as a refugee who is coming from a refugee camp," he said. "So this role means a lot to me and also means a lot to those young athletes who are going to compete."

Competition at Dakar 2026 begins later in the week, with the opening ceremony on Saturday.