Sport Athletics Coached by Tegla Loroupe Height 1.78 m Coach Tegla Loroupe | Event(s) 800 m Personal best(s) 1:54.67 (2016) Weight 62 kg | |
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Born January 1, 1995 (age 22) ( 1995-01-01 ) Club Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation | ||
Yiech Pur Biel (born 1 January 1995) is a track and field athlete originally from Nasir, South Sudan, but now living and training in Kenya. He has been selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete for the Refugee Olympic Team in the 800 m event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. He placed last in his heat.
In 2005 he fled from his home town of Nasir in Sudan to escape a civil war. After living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp for 10 years, he started running competitively in 2015. The Kakuma refugee camp is one of the largest refugee camps in the world with over 179,000 people. According to Biel there were no facilities, he even didn't have shoes and not a gym. Also the weather does not favour training because from morning until evening it is sunny and hot. In 2015 he was selected to join the Tegla Loroupe Foundation, that hold athletic trials in Kakuma. Nowadays he trains under Tegla Loroupe herself in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, along with four other middle-distance runners from South Sudan selected for the Olympic refugee team within a joint initiative by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
