Syrian taekwondo athlete Wael Fawaz Al-Farraj is one of the 44 who come from 12 countries across all five of the world's continents.

He trains at the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF) Academy and was the first Syrian refugee to compete at an overseas event after fighting at the Arab Cup in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

The 19-year-old was the first athlete to gain a black belt from the THF Academy at Azraq and was close to featuring at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as part of the refugee team.

"We welcome you to the Olympic community and wish you luck in qualification," said IOC President Thomas Bach in a message to all the selected athletes.

"I know what a difficult period it is to go through to qualify for the Olympic Games, and so we admire how you are meeting the challenge given all the difficulties you have overcome."

The scholarships are fully funded by the IOC through its Olympic Solidarity programme dedicated to refugee athletes which aims to provide them with the support they need to train and compete in qualification tournaments in the build-up to the Olympic Games.

The athletes come from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, and compete in athletics, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, judo, karate, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling.

Three of the athletes - badminton player Aram Mahmoud, weightlifter Cyrille Tchatchet and marathon runner Tesfay Felfele, are benefitting from transition scholarships, as they are already, or in the process of, becoming citizens of their host countries.

The Olympic Scholarships for Refugee Athletes programme was established following the first Refugee Olympic Team featuring at Rio de Janeiro 2016.

Since then, it has expanded to offer National Olympic Committees the opportunity to identify refugee athletes living in their countries and support them in their preparations.

This led to more than 50 scholarship holders being helped in the run-up to Tokyo 2020 with 29 athletes eventually being selected for the Refugee Olympic Team in Japan.