Refugee Team swimmer Yusra Mardini makes her mark at Rio Olympics

THERE will be many great stories played out in Rio over the next fortnight. Few will compare to that of Yusra Mardini.

Yusra Mardini takes part in the women's 100m butterfly heat at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

SHE didn’t make it through to the next stage, and her name won’t feature in the record books, but no-one who saw Yusra Mardini compete on the first morning of swimming at the Rio Olympics will ever forget her.

There will be many great stories played out in Rio over the next fortnight. Few will compare to that of Mardini.

Just over a year ago she and her sister were in the waters off Turkey, trying desperately to save themselves and a boatload of their fellow refugees.

Refugee Olympic Team's Yusra Mardini takes part in the women's 100m butterfly heat.

On Saturday morning she was marching at the Opening Ceremony in Rio behind the banner of the Refugee Team and 12 hours later she was back in the water, this time to swim the first heat of the 100m butterfly.

She won, a second ahead of the next competitor in the heat, but still around 10 seconds too slow to make the semi-finals.

Still, when you have been through what Mardini has, what’s 10 seconds here or there? Her smile as she climbed from the pool was the equal of any that will be flashed by a gold medallist at these Games.

It was early last year that the-then 17 year-old Mardini and her sister Sarah made a bid to escape their war-torn homeland Syria and headed off on a dangerous odyssey that took them from Damascus to Beirut and then Turkey.

Yusra Mardini, swimming for the Refugee Olympic Team, competes in a women's 100m butterfly heat.

There, they squeezed onto a dinghy full of refugees headed across the Aegean Sea towards their intended destination of the Greek Island of Lesbos.

Less than an hour into the journey the motor failed, and Mardini, her sister and another woman — the only three on board who could swim — jumped into the water and dragged the boat and its terrified inhabitants to safety.

“I thought it would be a shame if I drowned in the water, because I am a swimmer,” she told reporters in Rio.

Aussies star in the pool on Day 1

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Now living and training in Germany, she is only getting back to swimming the times she did in Syria, but is still a long way off world class.

Even so, just by competing at Rio, alongside 44 other refugees, she has proved herself a winner.

“The only thing I ever wanted was to compete at the Olympics,” she said.

“It was amazing.”

Indeed it was.

Originally published as Refugee Team swimmer Yusra Mardini makes her mark at Rio Olympics