‘I’m born to suffer’: refugee athlete Dominic Lobalu on race to find a home

T he scene is the closing stages of last year’s Stockholm Diamond League 3,000 metres. Jacob Kiplimo, Uganda’s half marathon world record holder and an Olympic medalist, heads a quartet of runners approaching the final bend on his way to what is expected to be a routine win. Trailing him are Kenya’s Cornelius Kemboi and Stewart McSweyn of Australia. We know that because the commentator says so. The fourth of the leading pack is an unidentified man in a plain white singlet.

Entering the home straight, the man in white moves into second place. Grasping for his name, the commentator suggests it is an athlete from Burundi. He is wrong, but the man in white is accustomed to being invisible. Only when the man pulls alongside Kiplimo and passes him approaching the finish line does the commentator realise his error, correctly identifying a life-changing victory for Dominic Lobalu.

Where most athletes have their national flag next to their name, Lobalu has the letters ART, denoting the Athlete Refugee Team. But he does not represent them. Nor does he represent South Sudan, the country of his birth, or Switzerland, the country where he now lives. Lobalu is stateless; a refugee and asylum seeker with no official nationality.

At this moment, all that can be forgotten. For now, he is just a man running the race of his life, beating some of the sport’s biggest names and catapulting himself on to a stage of which he has only ever dreamed. “That is a transformation from being an also-ran on the international scene to being a superstar,” concludes the commentator.

The 24-year-old Lobalu is the first refugee athlete to turn professional, but his lack of national identity means he cannot compete at this summer’s world championships or