It’s tricky to put the word “Shooting”
next to the word “Refugees”
and then say this is about inspiring other people.
I totally understand that.
I mean, I’ve been facing this for 16 years.
The best way to explain my sport is to allow
those people with concerns to at least give it a try.
And you’ll see that it’s really about...
yourself.
I knew that there was a refugee team in Rio 2016.
I thought it was an amazing initiative
and it really sent a strong message.
In this Olympic world, we are all equal.
So, I’ve been thinking,
how can I use my role as Olympic champion in my sport
and at the same time send a message?
I started to shoot in the year 2000.
I was 13 and fell in love with the event.
Yeah honestly, for me the sport
was more a means to an end
and the end was to go to the Olympics.
My first Olympic game I was 20 years old
and I was so close to qualify for the final
and I did a mistake.
That mistake, it created a drive to change everything.
And I was ready in London.
There are no ties.
Results are final.
Ladies and gentlemen, your gold medalist,
Niccolo Campriani!
Yeah it was great, honestly.
The last shot in London, for me, kind of closed
the competition of Beijing.
Probably the longest competition ever.
The problem with London Olympics,
is the feeling the day after is just a sense of void
because yeah, it’s like, “What’s next?”
For the first competition...
Everybody expected me to continue to shoot.
So, I kept shooting.
And then...
the passion became an obsession.
For the next competition shot...
-Load. -Ten point seven!
I had the whole day to shoot and train
if I wanted to and that’s what I did.
Load three.
And the four hours became 12 hours.
With the shooting at this level, everybody...
Load. Load.
Three, two, one...
And I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore.
Yes, I was really good at it but...
if we have one life, it’s not about doing
what you are good at
but it’s about doing something that you can enjoy.
I’m not talking about fun. I’m talking about passion.
So the cool thing about Rio, is that
when I walked into the last final
of the last competition,
it wasn’t just the last shot of the Olympic Games,
it was just the last competition shot of my life.
We start the final.
I’m always battling with Sergey Kamenskiy.
We arrive at the last shot,
I’m a few tenths of a point behind.
I shoot before Kamenskiy.
It’s a bad shot. So it’s over, okay?
I’m already behind. I shot a mistake. It’s over.
For eight seconds, I’m silver medalist,
and then after his shot I’m the new Olympic champion.
I really struggled to accept that.
I was so happy with that silver medal
that winning the gold that way,
it was kind of, I don’t know, I didn’t feel...
that I earned it.
Niccolo Campriani!
In order to justify this,
I decided to donate the prize money,
the difference between the silver and the gold medal.
After Rio, Nicco Campriani made one of the largest donations
in Italy to the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees.
Because of his donation, the UNHCR invited him
to visit a refugee camp in Zambia.
It was an incredible experience of course,
something that I will never forget.
And that’s it. That’s how the idea of the project...
came up.
A few months ago,
Niccolo and Gonzalo arrived in the office
of the EVAM director with an uncommon request.
They explained the project, their idea,
which was to allow asylum seekers or refugees
to train with a three-time Olympic champion
with the goal of trying to get qualified
for the Olympics Games.
The thing I liked most about this project was
Niccolo's motivation.
I saw a light, stars in his eyes.
And I thought that someone
with so much energy, so much faith
in his project... it's worth participating
and it’s worth joining him in this course of action.
Tomorrow we're going to move these three stands downstairs.
Gonzalo, he’s a colleague of mine
working the Olympic Solidarity,
who has been helping me quite a lot over the last few months
putting together these special projects,
and tomorrow we’re going to pick one boy, one girl
that will join me over the next year.
We’re going to train together.
The idea of teaching you how to shoot today
is that tomorrow you can help me
with the translation, with the French part.
But instead of translating what I’m saying,
you can be the instructor, pretty much, at the same time.
I should mention we talked about discipline.
Several colleagues told me,
"The Olympics Games are fantastic,
but why in-sport shooting? Is it a good idea?
These are people fleeing conflict situations,
fleeing war, is this a good message?"
Because the sport is a bit peculiar,
I found some resistant.
I just needed to break the ice
and really explain my sport and why my sport.
One thing that you notice
is that if you don’t breathe, you move less. Right?
-Yeah. -So you have to hold
your breath.
If meditation would be a sport it would be shooting.
I’m going to teach them how to listen to their bodies,
their thoughts, their emotions...
and yes, we’re going to do that with an air rifle.
We concluded that immigrants, like us, can tell things apart
and accept the difference
between a weapon and sports equipment.
That’s a nine. That’s not bad.
Thank you guys so much for coming.
It’s amazing. I mean you’re going to see me
smile all the time today,
because this is already an incredible result.
So today we’re going to try
a little bit of air rifle shooting.
We’re going to have a few stations
so three will actually practice
and three will listen and watch.
There will be other stations where...
there will be some friends and colleagues
collecting background details.
None of the candidates have ever tried my sport
so that’s going to be a real challenge.
But I think we are ready.
And just one boy, one girl,
selected in one day.
Quite ambitious.
So, this is an air rifle.
You have air in this cylinder
and you don’t use ammunition.
But you have these lead pellets instead.
-Hello, Dalia. -Hello.
Can you please give me your full name?
My name is Dalia Hussein.
-And you come from... -Syria.
-My name is Qassem Jafari. -Qassem.
My name is Wafa.
-Where are you from, Wafa? -I’m from Yemen.
I'm from Syria. I'm Kurdish from Syria.
I come from Afghanistan...
MAHDI AFGHANISTAN
but I grew up in a different country.
In Iran.
Try, try, try.
Load and try to feel the first stage.
That’s very good. 10.7. That’s awesome.
I thought I was okay yesterday but now I see...
-No, no, no. I’m sorry, man. -...I was awful.
In your own words, with your own feelings,
why are you here today?
To participate in the Tokyo championship, I suppose.
I would like that, but I don’t find a lot
of friends here in Switzerland
in order to improve my French and participate in sports.
You just open and you leave it open.
I never played a sport.
I wasn't authorized to.
But today, I am very happy that in this host country,
I can play a professional sport
and learn it without any problems.
I’d really like to go out and meet girls.
I didn’t know all the candidates.
And for me it was more about meeting people and talking.
And now, I just made friends with a girl.
Your position, hold the rifle.
It’s not you with strength.
It’s the bones, it’s the structure.
So here, this hand very close.
Listen to your body.
The body knows where it wants to go.
If you fight against it you’re not going to win.
And when did you arrive in Switzerland?
In August, 2015.
Do you like it?
Yes, I like it. But it's a little difficult
to learn French,
and to find work. But at least I'm trying.
What is your living situation?
I live alone. In a studio.
I have two sisters and two brothers here.
I still have one brother and two sisters in Syria.
Do you miss it here in Switzerland?
Yes.
Because my family is over there.
That's what I miss.
They left everything,
they didn’t choose to come here.
Sometimes they've lost their family, loved ones.
They end up in a country they know nothing about,
they don’t speak the language
and they have to start from zero.
Integration is a very long process.
It's very difficult, with many pitfalls.
And it's not a linear process.
To me, the main thing about this project
is that it gives hope.
That’s awesome, guys. That’s very, very good.
So, tell me why you’d like to take on this adventure?
I don’t believe in destiny because I don't want to think
I'm not in control of my life.
This is a chance!
I’d like to work with Nicco
because it's a dream for me to be selected
for the Olympic Games.
My attention to participate, to have the self-control,
to also work on my self-esteem.
Doing this is going to be a good opportunity
to let people know
that they’re able to do things.
People are staying away from refugees.
They think they don’t do anything,
and are just here to eat and sleep.
So maybe I can change people’s opinions.
Maybe I can send a message to the whole world.
I hope I succeed in doing so.
So we had 11 candidates.
From a technical standpoint, Mahdi was by far the best.
I’m still hesitating.
Mahdi did a great interview this morning
and showed a lot of motivation.
They all committed but what if, you know,
now they go back home, they digest everything
and it’s like,
“This is happening. Actually, this is real.”
Once they start training and suddenly
they don’t feel so motivated. It’s a long way, yeah?
Yeah, especially with one year to go.
-Yeah. -So how do we do this?
-You tell them, Nicco. -You tell them.
I think you should make the call.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In front of everybody?
-Yes? -Yeah.
Okay guys, first of all,
thank you, thank you so, so much for coming here today.
This has been an amazing day for me.
I hope you all had fun.
On that note, I had to choose one boy and one girl.
All the other boys did very good but...
with the boy...
we chose Mahdi.
Now for the girls...
that’s a little bit tricky, okay?
It was too close to call.
And at the end we decided to pick two.
The two that we selected are...
Khaoula
and Luna.
Thank you. Thank you everybody.
It was a beautiful adventure today. Thank you.
I think the success of this project will be assessed
after the end of the project.
Because it’s really not about
changing the life of two refugees.
It’s about triggering something more,
hopefully, a few Olympic champions
to do the same thing for Paris 2024
in their own sport.
If we succeed in that,
that means that what we started
was something that had a meaning.
Tomorrow is exactly 500 days to Tokyo.
That means that we have one year.
A little bit too long here.
Try to anticipate a little bit more this time.
It’s the first two-and-a-half months of training,
so we’ve been focusing on the position.
We have the Italian Championship
in July in Bologna.
In that one, we will compete.
In order to go to Italy,
I'm having problems with my papers.
The case of Mahdi made me understand how complex...
The whole situation is not black and white.
It is very important to me to qualify
for the 2020 Olympic Games.
Well, let's say maybe it's impossible
but I like to do what's impossible!