From The Refugee Team To Team USA, Abbas Karimi Can Sleep Soundly Knowing He’s Headed To Paris

The night before the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials began, Abbas Karimi could barely sleep.

The Tokyo Paralympian said he was in the best shape of his life heading into trials, but the pressure of a make-or-break meet can take its toll mentally.

“That nervousness and that excitement brought lots of heartbeating on me,” Karimi said.

The 27-year-old Karimi was able to calm himself down on June 27, the first of three days of trials in Minneapolis. Before competing in the men’s 50-meter butterfly S5, he reminded himself to trust the years of training he had put in to get to this moment.

That trust paid off, as he qualified for the final in all three of his events — the 50-meter butterfly, backstroke and freestyle S5.

Then, on Sunday June 30, he learned he was one of the 33 swimmers chosen to represent Team USA in Paris. Speaking only hours later, Karimi was still struggling to find the words to describe his feelings.

“I didn’t know what the result was going to be, but me and my coach have been working so hard to prepare me for the Paralympic trials and here we are,” he said. “We made it, and we have some more work to do until Paris.”

Karimi’s big emotions that day stem in part from his unique story.

Born without arms in Kabul, Afghanistan, Karimi was active in swimming and other sports there, but he fled the country at 16 to escape the Taliban and ended up in refugee camp in Turkey for four years. The United Nations Refugee Program eventually helped Karimi relocate to Portland, Oregon, where he resumed swimming and began training for the Tokyo Paralympics.

At that point, Karimi had already competed at two world championships as a refugee athlete, winning a silver in the 50 butterfly S5 in 2017. While he trained in Portland, he applied to become a U.S. citizen in hopes of representing the United States at the Paralympics.

Short of that, he was chosen to compete in Tokyo as part of the Refugee Paralympic Team, which represents the millions of people around the world who have been forced to flee their country due to war, persecution or human rights abuses. One of the six members of the team, Karimi served as one of its flag bearers at the Opening Ceremony and swam in the 50 backstroke and butterfly, qualifying for the final in the latter and finishing eighth.

Karimi officially became a U.S. citizen in April of 2022.

In a little over two years so far, Karimi has already enjoyed success with Team USA.

Just two months after earning his citizenship, he competed in the 2022 world championships. While he finished a spot off the podium in the 50 backstroke and butterfly, he won his first world title as a member of the U.S. 4x50-meter medley relay team that set a world record time of 2 minutes, 32.49 seconds.

Ahead of his second Games, and his first with Team USA, Karimi reflected on his entire swimming career that has led him to Paris.

“I gave up everything for swimming, to make it to this stage of my life,” he said. “Now representing a nation. … It’s a huge level; it’s a different feeling. And it’s a big honor for me to represent the United States.”

Karimi added that his U.S. teammates have been incredibly supportive and nice to him from the moment he began competing for Team USA.

He also said there are a few of his former refugee teammates that still keep up with his results.

They’ll now get the chance to watch him compete in his second Games. Qualifying for Paris sets Karimi up to achieve his goal of becoming a Paralympic champion, something he feels much better about now than he did ahead of Tokyo.

“There were a lot of obstacles and challenges in my first Paralympic Games,” he said. “I’m more prepared, I’m a better swimmer — faster, more endurance. And now I’m representing a country, so there’s a huge team behind me this time and hopefully we’ll get the job done.” 

Luke Hanlon is a sportswriter and editor based in Minneapolis. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.