• Valerie Tarazi, one of Palestine’s flagbearers at the Paris Olympics, reflects on her journey representing her nation at the biggest stage
• ‘Being able to honor my family and honor my country, especially right now … was the biggest honor that I could ever ask for,’ Tarazi tells Anadolu
• ‘Sport is more than just sports for Palestinians. It’s survival. It’s hope,’ says Tarazi

GENEVA

As the parade of nations marked the opening of the Paris Olympics last year, Palestinian swimmer Valerie Tarazi stood resolute on a boat, proudly holding her country’s flag despite a relentless downpour.

For nearly two hours, she remained unwavering, undeterred by suggestions from officials that she could place the flag in a holster until her moment in the spotlight. Tarazi refused, determined to raise her nation’s colors high for the world to see.

“They said, ‘You can just put it in the holster and let it go until it’s your TV time,’” she recalled in an interview with Anadolu. “But I wasn’t going to let our flag down.”

For Tarazi, this act was far more than a ceremonial gesture. It was deeply symbolic – a moment of defiance and resilience in the face of immense adversity, a declaration that Palestine, despite the world’s attempts to overlook it, would stand tall on the international stage.

Tarazi, like thousands of other Palestinians, has suffered immense personal losses in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, with several members of her extended family killed in an Israeli airstrike on a church in December 2023.

“Being able to honor my family and honor my country, especially right now; to be able to raise the flag when people didn’t want us to raise the flag; to be able to be a voice that people listen to for five minutes, was the biggest honor that I could ever ask for.”  

Roots and resilience

Born and raised in Chicago, Tarazi, now 25, has Palestinian roots that run deep. She hails from one of Palestine’s oldest Christian families, her grandfather born and raised in Gaza. Though she grew up far from her ancestral land, the connection was always profound.

“I always felt a strong connection to Palestine,” Tarazi shared.

Her journey in swimming began when she was just 3 years old, with serious training starting around age 8. By the age of 12, she was already training twice a day, driven by the challenge the sport presented.

“I really liked swimming because it was the hardest,” she said, noting that her ambition had always been to compete at the highest level.

In 2023, Tarazi made her debut representing Palestine at the Arab Championships in Algeria, winning two gold, three silver, and one bronze medal.

The path to representing Palestine internationally was complex, given her distance from Palestine itself. Her family did not speak Arabic, and she had never set foot in Gaza.

However, a crucial turning point came during her college years, when she voiced her aspiration to one of her coaches.

Recognizing her determination, the coach introduced Tarazi to the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Swimming Federation, whose support opened doors, enabling her to fulfill the requirements and officially compete under the Palestinian flag.  

Overcoming barriers

After securing her place on the team, Tarazi quickly became aware of the tremendous hurdles Palestinian athletes must overcome.

“We don’t have the funding, we don’t have the infrastructure, and we don’t have the facilities,” she explained.

“There’s not a single Olympic-sized pool in Palestine. We don’t have the opportunity to travel like other countries.”

These difficulties are felt acutely, even for a Palestinian athlete residing in the US.

“It is a pain to go for any competition. We’re very limited in what we can do. We’re very limited in where we can compete … and very few other countries, if any, have those challenges.”

Yet, for Tarazi and other Palestinian athletes, sport transcends competition – it symbolizes survival and hope, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation.

“Sports is more than just sports for Palestinians,” she said. “It’s survival. It’s hope.”  

Solidarity amid struggle

Her resilience was further tested at the Olympics, where she continued receiving devastating news about loved ones being killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza.

Still, among these heartaches, one uplifting moment stood out.

On the Olympic boat, Tarazi made a video call to her friend and fellow Palestinian athlete, Tamer Qaoud, who had been forced to return to Gaza shortly before October 2023.

“He went back to Gaza days before Oct. 7 … He was pulling out his old national team shirts from the rubble and made an Instagram video. He doesn’t have that right to practice sport anymore. He’s out of sports since the war. That’s not fair.”

In that precious, fleeting moment during the opening ceremony, Tarazi and her co-flagbearer, Wassim Abusal, reached out to Qaoud through a spotty video connection.

“We FaceTimed Tamer while we were on the boat holding the flag, and we were like, ‘This is for you,’” she recalled fondly.

“It gave him a little smile on his face, knowing that we were there for him.”

At its core, Tarazi’s message is about humanity, connection, and the universal right to participate in sport without barriers.

“Sports is a basic human right. I swam against people in eight different lanes from all different countries who probably didn’t speak the same language, and we all did the same sport and had that in common,” she emphasized.

"I think the world needs to look at what we have in common and not our differences.”