After safely swimming their boat to shore in Lesbos, Greece, Sarah and Yusra Mardini continued on foot to Berlin, Germany, as AP News reported, a journey that took weeks. They lived in a refugee camp in the city for six months, according to Vogue. But it was here that they learned something that would change especially Mardini's life: An Egyptian translator mentioned a nearby swimming club called Wasserfreunde Spandau 04, according to AP News. The sisters decided to try out. "It was clear these two sisters had trained seriously. Their technique was good," Mardini's former head coach Sven Spannekrebs, who took charge of her training at the time, told Vogue.

Mardini had a lot of work to do to make up for the two years of training she had lost because of the war, but it was work she was willing to put in. Sarah, meanwhile, decided not to continue swimming competitively, in part because of a shoulder injury and "physical and emotional pain," she said, according to The Guardian. However, for both of them finding the Berlin swimming club helped them get settled in their new country in more ways than one. Spannekrebs even helped the sisters get their papers to stay in the country, according to Vogue. "Sport was our way out," Mardini told Olympics.com. "It was kind of what gave us hope to build our new lives."

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