MHS junior has once-in-a-lifetime experience
Sports editor
Roughly 9,000 miles separate the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, and the Rhino Capital of Kansas, Marion.
However, Marion High School junior Louis Holt has found a way to close that gap.
Holt, a Marion resident, had a chance to meet and hang out with U.S. track Olympian Lopez Lomong this past month at the Air Force Academy running camp in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Holt, who competed in the 1-4A Kansas state cross country meet this past year, said it was an honor to meet Lomong.
“He’s very nice. He wasn’t cocky, just confident,” Holt said. “He loves to joke around and he is very down to earth.”
That comes as no surprise considering the challenges life has thrust upon Lomong, a naturalized citizen.
Great opportunity
Lomong was elected by his U.S. Olympic teammates to carry the flag Friday in the opening ceremonies at Beijing.
He called it the best day of his life, and an honor.
As a child, Lomong had only bad days.
According to his web site www.lopezlomong.org, Lomong was six years old when he was captured along with 49 other young boys while attending a Sudanese church.
The motive of his militia captors was to turn the young men into soldiers.
After three days, he escaped with a few other boys and walked through the wilderness to Kenya.
There, Lomong was arrested and sent to a refugee camp.
After 10 years, living on one meal per day, Lomong interviewed with a U.S. embassy official and was re-located to New York.
There, with a new family, he began his goal of becoming an American citizen.
He attended Northern Arizona University, later became a citizen, and is now competing in his first Olympics.
Holt was able to meet Lomong because the Olympian was in Colorado Springs training with his personal coach John Hayes, who also is the Air Force cross country head coach.
Holt didn’t have time to have a lot of one-on-one conversations with Lomong, but he was able to chat it up from time-to-time.
“You could talk to him, and he wouldn’t shoot you down just because you were a high-schooler,” Holt said. “He was awesome to talk to.”
Lomong told the 50 cross country campers about his life journey, and a project in Darfur, a region of the Republic of Sudan, he is currently involved in.
Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have been murdered, and China has been an ally of Sudan because of its dependence on oil.
Lomong’s teammate, Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek, is an organizer for “Team Darfur,” an organization Lomong belongs to, and had his visa revoked by the Chinese government.
The project’s goal is to educate the world about the genocide in Darfur.
Cheek will not be able to compete in the Olympics, and he said he was not given a reason, but knows it is because of his connection with Team Darfur.
So far, Lomong has not run into that problem, and Holt said he shied away from the controversy at the cross country camp.
He liked to talk to the campers about running, and they obviously listened.
Holt said the campers would be running, and Lomong would run by them when he was training.
“He would blow past us,” Holt said. “It was awesome.”
Holt loved the experience, and hopes to attend The Academy when he is done at MHS.
For now, he has the memory of meeting all kinds of people, including Olympian Lopez Lomong.
“He was really deep in his faith and thanked God for saving him,” Holt said. “You could tell he appreciates life. It was really neat to talk to him.”