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Friday, August 8, 2008
Sometimes sports answers tough politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beijing — As it turns out, sports and politics can mix wonderfully.
A government rescues abducted children from a war-torn country. A 6-year-old boy crawls through a fence hole to escape the militia. The U.S. throws him a rescue line. He takes his first real shower and has “the best meal I’ve ever had” at a fast-food restaurant. High school, college, citizenship.
The story gets better.
Sports and politics more than mixed this time. Lopez Lomong, who once ran for his life, will run for a medal for the U.S. in the 1,500 meters. Could even a gold match what he felt Friday night as the flag-bearer for the U.S. team in Opening Ceremonies?
Sports and politics got it right. U.S. athletes have been answering questions for months about whether they would make political statements at these Olympics. Would they speak out about Tibet or Darfur? Will they lambaste China for its human rights record? Would they make use of their 15 minutes of fame?
“I’ve thought about that,” said Jessica Mendoza, a softball player. “We all have a goal of just getting that 15 minutes. What we do with it, I’m not sure.”
No reason to say a word now.
It doesn’t really matter whether political motives or just a really cool story prompted U.S. athletes to select Lomong to lead them into Beijing’s National Stadium. Either way, perfect choice.
In 2000, he was 15 and raking dirt in a refugee camp in Kenya when friends suggested they watch the Olympics on television. The closest TV was five miles away. They walked.
“It was five [Kenyan] shillings to get in,” Lomong said.
He paid the equivalent of seven cents to watch the Sydney Olympics in black and white. When he walked into the room, Michael Johnson was running the 400. “I said I want to be as fast as that guy. I want to wear that uniform.”
There were other worthy choices as flag-bearer. But nobody else had been chased through an African jungle.
As a 6-year-old, Lomong didn’t know about the civil war in the Sudan, the militia that destroyed villages, killed parents and abducted young boys with the intent of forcing them into being soldiers. But one day, in the village of Kimotong, militiamen broke into church as Lomong sat with his parents. They told everybody to lie down and directed the children outside. When Lomong’s father tried to fight, he was knocked to the ground.
“They dragged us all the way to a big truck, which was covered with canvas,” Lomong said. “I was crying.”
There were nearly 100 boys on that truck. They were driven far away, to a small, windowless building and imprisoned for three weeks. Back in Kimotong, Lomong’s parents searched for him for days. Eventually, they gave up hope, presumed him dead and held a funeral.
Lomong endured but saw death all around him. The boys were given water twice a day. The only “food” was a mixture of grasses and sand. Several died. “Kids would go to sleep and not get up the next day,” he said.
Instead, he escaped. A friend noticed a hole in a fence. “He came over to me and said, ‘At midnight, we’re going to see your parents,’” Lomong said. And as the guards spoke, four boys crawled in the dirt and through the hole.
They ran for three days. (“That’s when I started to race.”)
The four slept facing in one direction so they wouldn’t awake and run in a circle. When they reached the Kenyan border, they were arrested by officials and put in a refugee camp. It was Lomong’s home for 10 years, and he didn’t mind. He had presumed his parents were dead.
In 2001, the U.S. started a program to find homes for “The Lost Boys of the Sudan.” Lomong was in that first group of 3,600. His foster parents in upstate New York, Roger and Barbara Tully, picked him up at the airport. His first American meal was a chicken sandwich from McDonald’s, which he loved but couldn’t finish. The Tullys told him to discard the rest. But he took it home.
“In camp we had chicken twice: Christmas and Easter,” he said. One chicken for 10 boys. They made a soup with water and salt. “If there was a piece of chicken in [your bowl], Merry Christmas to you,” he said.
Lomong was 16 when he came to the U.S. He went to high school, then Northern Arizona University, and ran track. On July 6, 2007, he became a U.S. citizen. One year later to the day, he made the Olympic team.
Story gets better.
Last August, he was reunited with his parents. Three months later, he gave them a TV set. Color.
“I told them to watch me in the Olympics,” he said. “I didn’t even know if I would make it, but I did.”
He was asked Friday about Darfur and China’s record on human rights. He chose to stay clear of controversial comments, other than to say he was “disappointed” that fellow Team Darfur member Joey Cheek had his visa revoked by the Chinese government.
“He’s supposed to be here,” Lomong said. “He’s an Olympian. He’s supposed to tell people about the situation.”
It doesn’t matter now. No statement could’ve been louder than Lomong leading the U.S. team into the stadium. There’s your 15 minutes.
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