Team Darfur Member to Carry U.S. Flag at Olympics (Update2)

Team Darfur Member to Carry U.S. Flag at Olympics (Update2)


Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A Sudanese-born runner who is a member of an athletes group critical of China's policies toward Darfur was chosen to carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Lopez Lomong, a 1,500-meter runner who became an American citizen 13 months ago, was selected last night in a vote of captains of the sports squads on the U.S. Olympic team.

The 23-year-old Lomong will carry the Stars and Stripes at the head of the U.S. delegation of athletes, coaches and administrators as it parades into the Bird's Nest stadium with the other 204 countries tomorrow night.

``This is the most exciting day ever in my life,'' Lomong said in a statement released by the U.S. Olympic Committee. ``It's a great honor for me that my teammates chose to vote for me. I'm here as an ambassador of my country and I will do everything I can to represent my country well.''

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge this week called for athletes not to ``get into propaganda exercises,'' and Beijing organizers have made repeated requests to competitors not to politicize the Olympics.

``Politics and sports ought to be separate,'' Song Luzeng, secretary general of the Chinese Olympic Committee, told reporters today. ``We hope the Olympics can help bring about greater friendships among countries.''

Visa Revoked

China today named Yao Ming, the National Basketball Association player, as its flag-bearer.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said yesterday that it had withdrawn a visa for Joey Cheek, an Olympic speedskating gold medalist and Team Darfur's co-founder. Cheek had intended to visit Beijing during the Games, though he has no official link to this year's Olympics.

``His selection is a statement to how moving his story is,'' Cheek told USA Today about Lomong. ``The fact that he survived these tragedies is an amazing story.''

Lomong came to the U.S. in 2001 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya, where he had escaped from violence in his homeland as a 6-year-old, among thousands who became known as the ``Lost Boys of Sudan.'' He has said he first became aware of running as a sport when he saw U.S. world-record holder Michael Johnson in the 2000 Olympics from Sydney on a black-and-white television.

``I'd like to run like that guy,'' is how Lomong has described his reaction.

Chinese Trade

He is listed as a member of Team Darfur, an athletes' group using the Beijing Olympics to focus attention on continued ethnic violence in the Sudanese region. Along with other human- rights groups worldwide, it has been critical of China's trade and diplomatic polices with Sudan, one of Beijing's commercial partners.

The organization's Web site said Lomong also had been named Darfur Hero of August by a related group, Save Darfur.

``As athletes, we need to send the message to the government not to kill or bomb and to China to stop because those guns are not to defend the country, but to kill innocent people,'' Lomong said on Save Darfur site, blogfordarfur.org. ``This is the 21st century. We don't want kids growing up in refugee camps like I did.''