But already the IOC has identified 43 international class athletes who have fled their homeland and attempted to find sanctuary elsewhere who might be eligible for participation. There is a Syrian swimmer training in Germany, a judoka from the Democratic Republic of Congo already ensconced in Brazil, an Iranian taekwondo champion living in Belgium.
And in a sense we shouldn’t be surprised. Given the huge uprooting of populations going on across the globe, it would be astonishing if those fleeing from war, oppression and terror did not include swimmers, runners and martial artists. And unlike Helfgott, these are athletes who have not yet attained the necessary residential qualifications to compete for their new homelands. Unable to go home either, they are caught – just at the point they are striving to compete in the games – in a dream-destroying limbo.
Which is why Bach’s gesture is so significant. Sure, a dozen athletes tearing around Rio hardly constitutes a practical solution to the wider international refugee crisis. But it is a token rich in symbolism. What it says is that those being demonised everywhere as terrorists, economic leeches and serial sexual predators, are in fact people of ability, ambition and determination, including athletes cruelly robbed of the opportunity of a lifetime by an unhappy quirk of history.