Running for My Life Read online

  Lap four of the 1500 is the “God, help me” lap. He already had. I took off around the first turn. I was right where I wanted to be to start my kick at the 300 meter mark. My eyes were open, but I felt like I was running in a dream. For You, God, and the kids I left behind, I prayed as I ran. Eight years earlier I wrote an essay as a prayer to God. Now I ran my prayer.

  Three hundred meters to go. I started my kick. This was my opportunity to make my dream a reality. This was the moment about which I’d talked to anyone who would listen since I landed in America. I moved toward the front. I was close enough that I thought I would not just qualify for the Olympic team; I had a chance to win this race.

  Two hundred meters to go. The final curve. I pushed my body harder than I had in any race in my life. I dug down for every last reserve of strength within me. Everyone was in their kick. “Lopepe, run fast!” I heard from the stands. With 150 meters to go, in the middle of the curve, running as hard as I could, my hamstring tightened with a yank. Pain shot up my leg and covered my body. “Not now. Not this. Oh God, hear my prayers.”

  I fell back. Runners passed me. I could not run full speed. More runners passed me, taking my Olympics with them.

  I ran out of the curve and onto the final straightaway. Coach Hayes always told me races are won and lost in the final one hundred meters. I pushed, but my body did not respond. My leg hurt and my body wanted to give in to the pain.

  Ninety meters to go. Eighty-nine. Eighty-eight. I fell farther behind.

  Then something remarkable happened, something I cannot explain. At the eighty-seven-meter mark, a burst of energy came over me and overwhelmed the pain in my leg. My feet flew. I passed one runner, then another. The crowd jumped to their feet, screaming, but I didn’t hear anything except the beating of my heart and my feet on the track. Up ahead I saw the first guy cross the tape, winning the race. I did not need to win to make the team. My goal was the top three. A second runner crossed the line. Two spots were taken. The finish line was right in front of me. With one final burst of speed, I passed the last runner as I crossed the line in third place.

  I fell to the ground, overjoyed. Up above, my friends chanted my name. I made the sign of the cross. “Thank You, God. Thank You, thank You, thank You. You did this, not me!” I may have run the race, but He was the One who healed my hamstring and my ankle and the One who gave me the power to make that final push. I got up and ran over to the guys who finished first and second. All three of us wore wide smiles. This was an unbelievable moment. “Congratulations,” I told them.

  “You, too, Lopez. We’re going to Beijing!”

  Later, the three of us made our way to the podium for the victory ceremony. Along the way I signed one autograph after another. People shook my hand. Others patted me on the back. “Congratulations, Lopez! Great race.” At the podium I was asked if I wanted to say anything. “Thank you, America,” I said. “Thank you.” That pretty much summed up everything in my heart.

  Here I was, a former lost boy. Not only did America open up and give me a home, but now I had the privilege of representing her on a world stage. Like Michael Johnson, I would soon run with the letters USA across my chest. I could not help but wonder if there would be another boy out there without hope who would see me run. Perhaps he would see me and know his dreams could come true.

  I left the podium and made my way through the crowd. More people crowded in for autographs. I signed as many as I could. Then I looked over and saw a small boy. He could not get through the crowd to get close to me. He reminded me of me many years before when the strong boys pushed me out of the way on Tuesdays at the garbage dump in Kakuma. Our eyes met. “Can I have your shoes?” he shouted.

  “Sure, kid,” I replied. I pulled my shoes off, signed the sides with a pen, and tossed them to him. His father broke out in tears. “Enjoy,” I said.

  “Thank you!” the boy yelled back.

  I walked on through the crowd, barefoot. Somehow, it only seemed right to walk away from the biggest race of my life without shoes. After all, that’s how I learned to run. Melissa ran over to greet me. Her parents were with her. All of them cried. Brittany found me in the crowd. We hugged. “You did it,” she said.

  I smiled. I could hardly talk. The dream had come true.

  After all the chaos died down, I went over to the medical tent for the post-race drug test. Afterward, Dr. Wharton took me, Brittany, Coach Hayes, and our friends out in a limo to celebrate. We drove around Eugene celebrating. One of the therapists shouted “Nihao, Beijing.” I don’t know why he did, but before long all of us were shouting it, even Coach Hayes.

  “How’s the ankle feel?” he asked.

  I had to stop and think for a moment. I hadn’t thought about the ankle since the gun sounded for the start of the race. “Perfect,” I said.

  “Unbelievable,” he replied.

  I smiled. “Yes it is,” I said. “Unbelievable” pretty much described my journey from Sudan to Kakuma to the black-and-white, car-battery-powered television to America and now this. Unbelievable and impossible, except for the God who makes all things possible.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Highest Honor

  Where’s Lopez? I want to meet Lopez.”

  I heard my name, but I could not believe the speaker was looking for me. For eight years I had dreamed of running for the United States in the Olympic Games, but this went beyond anything I could have ever imagined. The president of the United States was now looking for me.

  “Over here, sir,” one of the coaches said.

  President Bush smiled and headed over toward me. He had just delivered a speech to the entire U.S. delegation, which consists of every athlete and coach for every sport in the Olympic Games, from archery to volleyball. All of us were seated in a large gymnasium prior to the Olympic opening ceremonies. In his speech, the president tapped into his old cheerleader self. “Get out there and kick some butt!” he told us. After his speech, he went around the room shaking hands. So many famous athletes I admired were there: Duke’s “Coach K,” Mike Krzyzewski, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwayne Wade of the Dream Team. Michael Phelps, who went on to win eight gold medals, was also there.

  Yet out of all these incredible and famous athletes, the president wanted to see me. Me! A nobody, a lost boy! For eight years I dreamed of running in the Olympics, but I never dreamed this.

  “Mr. President, I would like to introduce you to our flag bearer, Lopez Lomong,” the head of the U.S. Olympic Team said. The flag bearer leads the team into the stadium. It is one of the highest honors any Olympic athlete can receive. Unlike medals that are won in competition, the flag bearer is elected by his teammates. Out of the 596 athletes representing the United States in these games, only one can lead the team into the stadium carrying the flag, and that one was me.

  President Bush shook my hand. “Lopez, I’ve heard a lot about you. I just wanted to let you know how excited and happy I am to have you here. Welcome to America. When you go out there and carry that flag tonight, enjoy the moment. It is your flag.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. I could not believe I was shaking hands with the president. My mind raced back to watching him in New York the day after the 9-11 attacks. He inspired me as he stood atop a pile of rubble with the rescue workers, a bullhorn in his hand. I had only been in America a few months at the time. That war that had followed me here left me shocked and shaken. Yet President Bush’s confidence calmed my fear and let me know that we as a nation would rise above the darkness of that day.

  “Let me introduce you to my wife, Laura,” the president said. “And this is my mom and dad.” I shook each hand in a state of total unbelief. Who gets to meet one president and first lady, much less two? No one else got to talk much to the president because he spent so much of his time with me. Eventually he moved on to greet other athletes. I lost sight of him. I assumed he’d left to go to his seat in the Olympic Stadium.

  Everyone in the U.S. delegatio
n, all of the nearly six hundred of us, stood around talking and laughing. We wore the same uniform: white slacks, blue blazers, and white caps. The guys wore ties; the girls did not. I thought back to Coach Paccia bribing me to run cross-country with a Tully High School jacket with my name on it. I could not wait for him to see me now as he watched the opening ceremonies on television back home.

  A U.S. Olympic Committee official came over and took me by the arm. “Come with me,” he said.

  I assumed I needed to go somewhere for instructions on how I was to carry the flag properly. Instead, he took me into a room off to one side. I walked in, and there was the president. “Lopez,” he said when he saw me, “come on in here. There’s something I forgot to tell you.”

  I could not imagine what the president needed to tell me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Lopez, son, when you go out there tonight carrying our flag, don’t let it touch the ground, buddy.”

  “No, sir, I promise you I won’t.”

  “All right. Go get ’em,” President Bush said with a laugh. Then he patted me on the back.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” I said. I went back to the team, but I do not think my feet touched the ground. No matter what happened from this point forward, these Olympic Games had already exceeded my wildest expectations.

  The idea of my becoming flag bearer first arose when one of my friends, a discus thrower named Casey, came up to me in San Jose prior to the team flying to China. “I’m going to nominate you to be the flag bearer,” he said to me.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “One person carries the flag in for the entire United States delegation in the opening ceremonies. I’ve talked to some of the other guys, and we think you should be the one to do it.”

  I thought about that conversation all the way across the Pacific on our flight to Beijing. The more I thought about the possibility of carrying the flag, the more excited I got. I doubted it would happen, but if I’ve learned anything in my life, it is to never doubt the impossible. The very idea that I could go from a lost boy in a refugee camp to United States Olympian sounded pretty impossible, but here I was. And I was not just on the Olympic team. I was on the team in the Games held in Beijing. I had been here once before during my trip from Nairobi to New York. That trip had also been a dream come true. Now God granted me an even larger dream. After the way He took care of both my hamstring and ankle injuries during the Olympic trials, I knew anything was possible.

  After training one afternoon, all the track-and-field athletes met together to elect a track-and-field team captain and to select our nominee for flag bearer. When it comes to the flag bearer, every sport nominates one athlete, which means basketball nominates one, swimming and diving one, gymnastics one, and so on. All the team captains then meet together to elect one person out of all the team nominees as the flag bearer.

  The guy running the meeting announced, “If you want to nominate someone, write down the name and turn in your paper up front.” After all the paper nominations had been turned in, the coach for all track-and-field read the names of everyone nominated. “If you hear your name, come up to the front.” The scene reminded me of sitting in church in Kakuma waiting for my name to be called for a ticket to America. Like then, my name was called. “Lopez Lomong,” the coach said. Unlike that day in Kakuma, I did not leap to my feet like I’d been handed a gold medal. I calmly got out of my chair and walked to the front of the room. After the last nominee came forward, the team voted. But the vote took an unexpected turn. One after another, the other nominees said, “I support Lopez,” and sat down. Finally, I was the only one left standing.

  This was only the first step in the election process. Next, all the team captains met together to vote on the nominees from each team. Usually this process goes through several ballots. Not in 2008. The captains elected me on the second ballot. One guy from another sport had even said, “If the track team had not nominated Lopez, I was going to do it myself.”

  When I was first chosen flag bearer, reporters assumed the U.S. team wanted to make a political statement. Around the time of the Olympic trials, I joined a group of athletes called Team Darfur. Created by Joey Cheek, who competed in the 2006 Winter Olympics as a speed skater, Team Darfur spoke out to raise awareness of the genocide occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. There, the Sudanese government in Khartoum committed the same kind of atrocities they committed in my home region of South Sudan during the civil war that lasted twenty years. In the south, the Muslim government of the north destroyed homes and villages of people who are predominantly animists and Christians. Darfur is a Muslim region. In fact, soldiers from Darfur fought against my people in the south. After fighting in the south ended, the genocide in Darfur began. Arab Sudanese began exterminating African Sudanese. Even though they shared the same religion, the government in Khartoum attacked and nearly wiped out the African Sudanese in the area.

  I spoke out against the genocide right after I qualified for the Olympic team. That is why my selection as flag bearer appeared to be a political act. The Chinese government financially supported the Sudanese government in spite of the atrocities. Groups from around the world pressed the Chinese to do something to stop the genocide, but China ignored them. They didn’t even let Joey Cheek attend the Olympics because they did not want him to speak out about Darfur. At the last minute they revoked his visa. I thought that was a huge mistake on China’s part, and I still do.

  But the U.S. team did not give me this high honor because they wanted to make a statement about Darfur. Right after word got out of my selection, a reporter asked me if my election had political implications. I did not take his bait. “I don’t have words for how happy I am,” I said. “I’m so proud to be an American and raise that flag proudly.”

  The biggest questions came the morning of my news conference. It was one of many news conferences the U.S. Olympic Committee organized that day. The U.S. basketball team, the Dream Team, was scheduled to talk to the press right after me.

  When I went into the conference room, I think reporters expected me to say something about Darfur and China’s role in it. As important as that topic may be, I knew what I had to do. I sat down and proceeded to tell my story. I talked about the day I was taken from my church and of being held in the rebel prison camp. I told the story of my escape through the wilderness with my three angels and of my years in Kakuma. I shared the story of watching Michael Johnson run in the 2000 Olympics and the dream he gave me. Then I explained how America opened its arms to me and gave me this great opportunity. “I am so thankful for this privilege of getting to put on this jersey and represent my country,” I said.

  At first I felt nervous. But as I shared my story a peace came over me. I knew this moment was why God put me in this position. This wasn’t just my story. He gave me this chance to speak up for all the lost boys and girls and for everyone who suffers from the unjustness of war.

  “I hope I’m here to inspire other kids who are out there watching these Olympics, as I did watching the Sydney Olympics. I hope … all the countries and all the nations are there watching and they will learn from where I came from,” I said.

  Once the press was finished with me, I walked out in the hallway. I needed to get back to training for my event. With all the media buzz surrounding me as the flag bearer, I almost forgot I actually had a race to run in a few days. The president of the USOC walked out with me. “Good job, Lopez. You were great in there,” he said.

  “Thank you. I spoke from my heart,” I said. “If you are through with me, I need to go train.”

  “Sure. I understand. I need to get back in there for the next press conference. See you at the opening ceremonies.”

  I turned to leave when a girl went up to the USOC president and whispered something in his ear.

  “Really?” he said to the girl. “Okay. We can do that.” Then, turning to me, he said, “Lopez, I need you
to do one more thing before you go. Coach K would like for you to say a few words to the basketball team.”

  My jaw hit the floor. “The Dream Team?”

  He laughed. “Yes, the Dream Team. Follow Susan here and she’ll take you to them.”

  The next thing I knew, I was next to Coach Mike Krzyzewski, the legendary Duke University basketball coach. Coach Jim Boeheim from Syracuse stood off to one side. Coach K put his hand on my shoulder. “We watched your news conference.”

  “You did?” I could not believe this.

  “We sure did. Listen, I need you to do me a favor. I want you to tell your story to my team exactly like you told it in that news conference. Tell these guys what it means to be an American and what it means to wear that jersey. I don’t think any of us understand it quite like you do.”

  “Are you serious? Me?”

  “Yes, I am, Lopez,” Coach K said.

  I walked into the green room and into the presence of athletic royalty. The room was filled with guys I’d not only watched on television, but I wore their jerseys out on the driveway shooting baskets at home in Tully, New York. Kobe Bryant sat on one side of the room near Lebron James. Carmelo Anthony, who went to college in Syracuse, sat close to the front. The greatest basketball players in the world filled this room, and their coach wanted me to talk to them.

  My knees nearly knocked and my voice cracked a little when I started talking. But I did exactly what Coach asked me to do. I told my story. Outside, media people walked the hall, looking for the Dream Team, who was now late for their news conference. The coaches did not care. “We will be out once Lopez is finished,” an assistant told a USOC media representative who knocked on the door. Inside the room, every eye was locked onto me. All these guys sat in complete silence as I spoke. They soaked in every word.

  After I finished speaking, Coach K got up. “Now you guys know what this is all about. You are ambassadors for our great country. Now go out there and get it done.” The team broke out in huge applause. Afterward I posed for photographs with the team. One player after another shook my hand and told me how much they appreciated what I said. I walked out of the room with a standing invitation to come hang out with the team whenever I wanted. More than that, I knew many of these guys were already involved in helping people in need both in the United States and around the world. It felt good to share my passion to make a difference in the lives of others.