You
may have noticed during the Parade of Nations that four Olympic
athletes are participating under the Olympic banner instead of their
country’s flag.
Three are from
the Netherlands Antilles,
a nation which was dissolved in 2010. The other athlete is 28-year-old
marathon runner Guor Marial. Marial was born in what is now South Sudan,
the world’s youngest nation, but was then Sudan. He became a refugee of
the Sudanese conflict in 1993 when he was only nine years old, as he
fled across border after border fleeing the violence. Marial was granted
asylum in the U.S. in 2001, and is a permanent resident here. An
All-American cross-country runner and an accomplished marathoner, Marial
rejected an offer from the Sudan Olympic Committee to run under its
flag at the London Olympics.
“Never,” he said of his refusal to run for Sudan. “For me
to even consider that is a betrayal. My family lost 28 members in the
war with Sudan. Millions of my people were killed by Sudan forces. I can
only forgive, but I cannot honor and glorify a country that killed my
people.”
Since he cannot run for his country, and does not have a South
Sudanese passport, the International Olympic Committee granted him
permission to run as an independent.
The decision means he will carry the Olympic flag, wear a uniform
that has no emblem of any nation and if he wins, the Olympic hymn will
play, he said. Not South Sudan’s. Not the United States’.
“The fact that I will be in the Olympics means a lot not just to me,
but to my country, which has gone through so much,” he said in a phone
call from Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is training. “Even if I am not
going to carry or wear the flag, I will be the flag of my nation. South
Sudan will be in my heart.”
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