Lopez Lomong, Lost Boy of Sudan, Will Carry U.S. Flag at Beijing Olympics

Olympic fan or not, this is the kind of story that breaks the coarsest hearts and seduces the most jaded souls.

Lopez Lomong was born in the Sudan 23 years ago, spent the first few years of his life there, was abducted by militias when he was 6 years old and forced to train to become a child soldier. He escaped, and spent the next 10 years of his life in a refugee camp in Kenya. He finally made it to the United States as a refugee, one of the 27,000 Lost Boys of Sudan--survivors of the second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2003) that cost 2 million lives and rendered tens of thousands orphans.

Now Lomong is part of Team Darfur, "an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about and bringing an end to the crisis in Darfur.”

As Lomong puts it on the front page of his Web site, "When we were in Africa, we didn't know what was there for us as kids--we just ran. God was planning all of this stuff for me, and I didn't know. Now I'm using running to get the word out about how horrible things were back in Sudan during the war. Sometimes these things are not on CNN, so if I put out the word, I hope people can get the information. Right now, similar terrible things are going on in Darfur; people are running out of Darfur, and I put myself in their shoes."

In July 2007, Lomong became an American citizen. Two days before the Beijing Olympics, where he was to compete in the 1500m, he was told that he would be carrying the American flag into the Bird’s Nest, Beijing's fabulous Olympic stadium.

Yes, it’s true that the Sudan's nine athletes, who are participating in two sports, may not have a chance at these Olympics. (Sudan has never won a medal since attending its first summer Games in 1960). But what an irrelevant truth that can be when Lomong’s story points to the richer meanings of Olympic Games: there’s no need to deny that politics and world currents are an inherent part of the Games. Neither is there a need to deny that in the end, the flags matter so much less than the burdens each individual athlete carries—for himself or herself, or for the causes and intentions of their choice. Sudan will have its athletes after all, whether or not they're in the strictly Sudanese delegation.