10 Things You Don’t Want To Miss At The 2008 Summer Olympics

And finally, Sudanese-American track and field athlete Lopez Lomong. People that were looking to turn young boys into child soldiers abducted Lomong at age 6 along with 50 others from church and he was able to escape with three other boys. The boys walked for three days and unknowingly, crossed into Kenya where border police arrested them and sent them to a refuge camp. Ten long years of living in the camp later, he learned of a program called “Lost Boys of Sudan” in the United States that would be resettling 3,500 young men. He applied to the program, telling them his life story of his life without his parents and five siblings, whom he assumed were dead, and was accepted. He moved to New York and was resettled with a family there were he came to find out his family was in fact alive and they thought he was dead. Lomong learned about the Olympics in the refuge camp and was inspired by watching Michael Johnson with the 400 meters in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Lomong competed for Northern Arizona University and was named the division I NCAA indoor champion at 3000 meters and the outdoor champion at 1500 meters. In Beijing, he will take on the 1500 meters and use the inspiration he gained eight years ago from Michael Johnson to push him to perform. Lomong will walk into Olympic Stadium with his head held high and will be carrying the American flag, an honor voted on by his fellow U.S. Team members. He’ll be racing for the red, white and blue team on Tuesday (8/19) 11:00pm – 12:00am EST.

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