One of the 'Lost Boys,' from Sudan, Lopez Lomong will be hoisting the US flag for the United States Olympic Torch ceremony.
Abducted at age 6 from the village of Kimotong when soldiers from the Sudanese People's Liberation Army burst into a church service in search of conscripts, the next decade of his life was a whirlpool of death, despair and starvation.
Lomong was trapped first for several weeks in a rebel base camp and then for 10 years in a refugee camp in Kenya, hemmed in by a long-running civil war pitting the better-armed, better-financed government troops dispatched from Khartoum in the Arab-dominated north of Sudan against the ragtag army of the tribal black south. Nearly every day, on every side of him, he watched the life slowly ebb from kids his age, heard their final gasps and wondered whether he was next.
His first glimpse of the wider world came in 2000, when Lomong was paid five Kenyan shillings - about seven cents - to move a pile of dirt and then ran five miles with some friends to hand over their earnings for a chance to watch the Sydney Olympics on a black-and-white TV. Lomong stood mesmerized as Michael Johnson zoomed around the oval in the 400 meters. The moment it ended, he announced, "I want to run just like that.''
In the US, he lived with foster parents who encouraged his athleticism. He grew into a lithe, 5-foot-11, 150-pounder and went on to become a state champion, then an NCAA champion at 3,000 meters and, at the U.S. Nationals last month, an Olympian.
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