Yusra Mardini was a competitive teenage swimmer in Damascus when Syria's civil war made continuing to train, or simply staying safe, increasingly difficult, with her swimming pool damaged by shelling and daily life disrupted by ongoing violence across the city.
In 2015, she and her older sister Sara fled Syria, eventually boarding a small, overcrowded dinghy in Turkey attempting to cross the Aegean Sea to Greece along with around twenty other refugees. Partway across, the boat's motor failed and it began taking on water, putting everyone aboard at serious risk of drowning.
Yusra, Sara, and two others who could swim got into the water and spent more than three hours swimming alongside the boat, pushing and guiding it toward the Greek island of Lesbos, helping keep it from capsizing under the weight of passengers who could not swim, until they finally reached shore safely.
After reaching Germany and resuming competitive training, Mardini was selected for the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, swimming in the same sport that had once been part of the life she'd had to leave behind, and later became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, using her story to advocate for refugees worldwide.