Former Lost Boy Finds His Way Onto U.S. Olympic Team
Lopez Lomong by Kirby Lee/ WireImage.com
Tuesday night's
Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel is mostly new, but one updated segment is definitely worth watching.
Mary Carillo's report on middle-distance runner Lopez Lomong originally aired last September, and is revisited with news of Lomong earning a berth on the U.S. Olympic team (July 22, 10 pm/ET, HBO).
On July 6, Lomong, one of the so-called "Lost Boys of Sudan,"
finished third in the 1500-meter run at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for track and field. He completes
an especially diverse trio for this event: world champion Bernard Lagat originally hails from Kenya, while Leonel Manzano, the NCAA winner for Texas, was born in Mexico.
The 23-year-old Lomong's journey to Beijing was long and turbulent. When he was just 6 he was captured by militia fighters during Sudan's civil war and separated from his parents. He soon escaped to a refugee camp in Kenya, where he stayed until 2001. As part of a program for the so-called "lost boys," Lomong was taken in by a family in upstate New York. He attended Northern Arizona University, winning the 2007 NCAA title in the 1500, and became a U.S. citizen later that year. A more detailed account of Lomong's harrowing odyssey can be found
here.
The heats of the Olympic men's 1500 are Friday, Aug. 15 in Beijing. Semifinals are Sunday, Aug. 17 and the final is set for Tuesday, Aug. 19. Look for coverage on NBC.
