In a few days, on July 26, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the race walker Antigoni Drisbioti will march into the Parisian stadium with the Greek flag, opening the Olympic Games as representatives of the country that gave birth to them and, above all, as representatives of the ideals of the games.
Despite Antetokounmpo’s international stature and his own emphasis on Greece as the place he feels is his homeland, many will frown upon this choice.
Nevertheless, the athlete with the non-Greek name and colour represents the best of Greece. He embodies ethics, kindness, gratitude without complaints, humility, sensitivity, and maturity.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, wealthy and famous, would have many reasons to turn his back on Greece. Yet, he returns and plays with the National Team, bringing honors to the country because he feels it is his duty, his homeland. A Greek with Nigerian heritage.
Giannis was born in Athens in 1994 and is the third in line among five siblings. They lived as illegal immigrants, constantly changing apartments.
They experienced fear when Golden Dawn was hunting immigrants. As he describes in a documentary about his life, when returning home, he would make his siblings run as a game.
“Do you think we can get home in two minutes?” he would say. “Inside, I was incredibly scared: that a group of people would pop out of nowhere and try to kill us,” he says, breaking down in tears. Yet, in his soul, Greece is a beloved country.
At the same time, a 17-year-old emerged in Spain whose name is making headlines worldwide. Even those of us who have no clue about football have learned his name.
Lamine Yamal. A child of immigrants, with a father from Morocco and a mother from Guinea, who lived on the fringes but became a global star with one goal. France offers 200 million to acquire him, but Barcelona refuses.
Often, when celebrating, he forms the number 304 with his fingers. These are the last digits of the postal code of the Rocafonda neighbourhood, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Catalonia, which the far-right VOX called a “multicultural dung heap.”
However, the world is changing. As Maria Dedousi writes in Protagon, “Despite the likes of Le Pen and every far-right entity, Giannis with the Greek flag will show a path. Not just the path to medals and glory, but a much more important path: There are thousands of Giannises out there. They want to study, work, excel, and contribute, in a country that is bleeding from a lack of human resources. They want the opportunity to do so.”