Guor Marial, Marathon Runner

"Going training and working hard every day is not as hard as what I've been through.  It makes running seem relatively easy.

"South Sudan has finally got a spot in the world community.  Even though I will not carry their flag in this Olympic Games, the country itself is there.  The dream has come true."  Marathon runner Guor Marial

He is a robust young man, a Dinka tribesman by birth, and a Christian, born at that juncture in his people's history as a civil war broke out in Sudan between the Arab Muslim majority and the black Christian minority lasting two decades, leaving two million people dead and four million migrant refugees.  Eight of Guor's ten brothers and sisters, along with countless other relatives died in the conflict.

He survived the attacks, the numerous torchings of his village by Arab nomads.  He survived as a boy to become a slave to the army officer he was sold to.  He escaped and made his way as a refugee to the United States.  "It's amazing.  It's one of those miracles through which God has shown the path he wants me to follow ...  He's using me to help other people", Guor Marial, now 28, declared.

His village was attacked frequently, and people would run into the bush until it seemed safe to return to the village.  At nine years of age, his parents sent him to a relative in the capital, Khartoum, where he did menial jobs for the Sudanese army while looking for an uncle living there.  He was kidnapped by nomadic Arab herdsmen, and forced to tend goats, but escaped them too. 

He found his uncle's home in Khartoum, but Sudanese police seized his uncle, forcing the boy's flight to Egypt joined by his uncle, where they became refugees, and were eventually brought to Concord, New Hampshire, granted refugee status.  At 16, Guor began his education at a high school, without  word of English.  There, however, his running talent and his stamina was noted and suggestions made he try out for the athletic team.

He was eventually given an athletics scholarship by Iowa State University.  He entered his first marathon and finished just inside the Olympic qualifying time.  A lawyer who had also been an athlete began to lobby on his behalf; even the South Sudan president wrote a letter on his behalf to have him entered  as a qualified athlete in the Olympics, but without a sponsoring representative country.

The International Olympic Committee finally agreed that Guor could run as an independent athlete under the Olympic flag.  He was granted a visa in the U.S. and travel documents enabling him to travel to London.  His parents, living in the newest country in the world, South Sudan, have no running water, electricity or telephone in their village.  They may travel to the nearest city to view their son compete, on television.

In the U.S. he works at a home for mentally disabled adults from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m.  He spends the balance of the day training, running along roads or trails,; occasionally the running track at University of Arizona.  The IOC is paying for his travel to London.  He hopes, this fledgling Olympian, that they may see their way clear to giving him a new pair of running shoes and a uniform of some kind, to run in.