For this refugee athlete, the Olympic torch is the culmination of a dream

Growing up in Syria, Ibrahim al-Hussein harboured Olympic dreams as a competitive swimmer, winning medals in the pool and training in the Euphrates River, until war came. A bomb blew off part of his right leg, and he fled to Turkey, and finally to Greece.

Now the UN High Commission on Refugees has announced the 27-year-old will carry the Olympic torch on Tuesday through Athens, part of the flame's journey from its Olympia home in Greece to Rio de Janeiro, site of this summer's Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"Imagine achieving one of your biggest dreams. Imagine that your dream of more than 20 years is becoming a reality," al-Hussein told UNHCR reporters Tania Karas and Ifigeneia Diamanti.

"My eyes only look forward. I can't think of the past. If I remember all those things behind me, it will slow me down."

In Athens, where he works in a cafe, al-Hussein has rebuilt his life around sports, training in a pool that's part of the 2004 Athens Games' legacy, and playing wheelchair basketball in a Greek league. The UNHCR reports that he will compete in the 50-metre freestyle at June's Panhellenic Games.

For now, though, all thoughts are on carrying the flame through the Eleonas refugee camp, where 1500 are living, ahead of a Summer Games in which for the first time a team of refugees will compete under the Olympic flag.

"It's not just a game for me," he said. "It's my life."