Syrian Taekwondo athletes Talah Al Hassan Al Hinide and Mahmoud Al Jasem Al Mohammad Al Hussein made history on October 2 at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games in Japan, becoming the first competitors to represent the Asian Refugee Team (ART).

Talah competed in the women’s −49 kg Kyorugi division, while Mahmoud contested the men’s −80 kg event. Both were eliminated in the Round of 16, according to World Taekwondo, but their participation marked a milestone extending beyond the competition results.

Aichi-Nagoya 2026 is the first edition of the Asian Games at which the Olympic Council of Asia has fielded a refugee team, with the two Taekwondo athletes making up its delegation.

From Azraq to the Asian Games

Both athletes live in the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan, where they discovered Taekwondo while rebuilding their lives after displacement.

For Talah, the sport gradually replaced hesitation and uncertainty with confidence and a renewed sense of possibility.

“Taekwondo became much more than a sport. It became my window to hope,” she said in the WT press release. “It gave me the opportunity to dream again and to believe that being a refugee does not define or limit my future.”

Mahmoud began practising Taekwondo in Azraq in 2016, after leaving Syria. He was among the early participants in a programme supported by the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF).

Over the following decade, training became a source of purpose and self-belief, eventually taking him from the refugee camp to one of Asia’s largest sporting events.

“For the first time, I felt that I could achieve something and that my future could be brighter than I had imagined,” Mahmoud said.

Support that created opportunities

Talah acknowledged the support of the THF, World Taekwondo President and THF Chairman Dr Chungwon Choue, WT Council Member Maher Magableh, and those who have helped refugee athletes pursue opportunities through Taekwondo.

Their participation brought a different dimension to the opening day of Kyorugi in Toyohashi. Alongside the contests for medals, the Asian Refugee Team’s debut demonstrated how sustained access to sport can connect athletes living in a refugee camp with international competition.

An Olympic ambition

Although their Asian Games campaigns ended without medals, Talah and Mahmoud leave Aichi-Nagoya having established a place in the event’s history.

Both now hope to continue towards another goal: competing on the Olympic stage as refugee athletes.

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