Focus on America

U.S. Olympic Team Reflects America

When the U.S. Olympic team marches onto the field for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing August 8, the 596 American athletes will not just join fellow athletes from more than 200 nations around the world -- they will, in a very real way, be a microcosm of that world.

In sports as varied as boxing and table tennis, archery and track, gymnastics and rowing, U.S. Olympic athletes’ prospects for the gold are enhanced by the presence of athletes who trace their roots to other nations.  Whether they or their families came to the United States to pursue economic opportunities, continue their education or escape war and civil strife, all of these athletes will proudly represent their adopted country in Beijing.

At least 33 such foreign-born athletes from virtually every region in the world are on this year’s U.S. Olympic team, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Khatuna Lorig, who will compete in women’s archery, has the very rare honor not just of participating in four separate Olympic Games but also of representing three different countries.

Lorig was a member of the Unified Team of the former Soviet Union at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  At the 1996 games in Atlanta and 2000 games in Sydney, she represented her native country of Georgia.  Lorig is now a resident and representative of the United States for the 2008 games. The 34-year-old does not see Beijing as the culmination of her Olympic career; she hopes both she and her husband will be competing together at the 2012 Olympics in London.

Gymnast Nastia Liukin also traces her family roots to the former Soviet Union.  Her father, Valeri Liukin, won four medals for the USSR at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul; her mother, Anna, was the 1987 rhythmic gymnastics world champion.  At the 2005 World Championship games, Nastia, who moved to the United States as a young child and currently resides in Texas, was champion in two individual gymnastic routines, the balance beam and the uneven bars.  She secured her spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympics gymnastic team with a strong second-place performance at the U.S. Olympics trials this June.

U.S. Olympic boxing team member Demetrius Andrade poses for photographers after a training session in New York July 11.Heather Corrie and Giuseppe Lanzone hope to make waves, figuratively and literally, in Beijing this summer.  Corrie, a native of Loughborough in the United Kingdom, is on the U.S. women’s kayaking team.  Lanzone, who was born and raised in Lima, Peru, is a graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of the U.S. men’s rowing team.

A late addition to the U.S. roster is Raj Bhavsar, who was named to the U.S. Olympic gymnastic team in place of the injured Paul Hamm.  “The first feeling that comes to mind is that dreams can come true,” said Bhavsar, of Indian-American heritage, who was also an alternate on the 2004 team.

For some American athletes, the trip to Beijing will represent a homecoming of sorts.  Table tennis occupies a unique niche in the U.S.-Sino relationship, since the diplomatic thaw between the two nations began in the early 1970s with the visit of a U.S. table tennis team to China.  Now, some four decades later, all four members of the 2008 U.S. Olympic table tennis team -- Gao Jun, Chen Wang, Crystal Huang and David Zhuang -- were born in China.  Their full-fledged immersion in American life is evident, however, in such things as Zhuang naming Titanic his favorite movie, the comedy classic Seinfeld his favorite television program and basketball legend Michael Jordan his role model.

Some of the greatest human-interest stories come from those U.S. athletes with ties to Africa.  Demetrius Andrade, whose nickname of “Boo Boo” seems slightly incongruous for a welterweight boxer, is of Cape Verdean descent.  He hails from Providence, Rhode Island, home to many immigrants from this island nation located off Africa’s west coast.  Andrade won the gold at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in 2007 and hopes for a repeat performance this year in Beijing.

East Africa long has been renowned for world-class long distance runners, and the U.S. Olympic men’s track and field team will be strengthened by the presence of three such athletes originally from nations in that region.  Bernard Lagat twice won Olympic medals, in 2000 and 2004, for his native Kenya.  A U.S. resident since 1996, when he received a scholarship to study at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, Lagat won the 1,500- and 5,000-meter races at the 2007 World Outdoor Championships in Osaka, Japan.  Abdihakem Abdirahman, a native of Somalia, has been the U.S. 10,000-meter champion three times since 2001.

Perhaps the most dramatic personal story belongs to 1,500-meter runner Lopez Lomong.  A native of Sudan, Lomong was 6 in 1991 when he was abducted by a militia faction that wanted to turn young boys into soldiers.  He escaped the militia and ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya. One of the so-called “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Lomong lived in the refugee camp for 10 years before being resettled with a foster family in New York and blossoming into a track star.

“I came to this country without expecting anything,” he told the newspaper USA Today.  “Now I want to return the favor by being a good runner.”

From running for his life to running for Olympic gold: It’s a story that epitomizes the opportunities America bestows on its newest citizens.