LHS Grad Makes 2016 Olympics

[Michael Deneen]

LHS and Denison U alum Makorobondo "Dee" Salukombo has qualified to race in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. A dual citizen, he will represent the Congo.
Dee fled his native country in 2004 due to its Civil War. He has lived in Lakewood since, and graduated from Lakewood High School.
He qualified by finishing ninth in the Ottawa Marathon.

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/spo ... /85208146/

[Alex Belisle]

A lot of Lakewoodites will be following him! A Lakewood "refugee" citizen makes good!

[Alex Belisle]

I never met this young man, a refugee from the Congo who went to Lakewood HS, but I heard of him relatively soon after I moved here. Now I hear that he's going to the Olympics and will be running the marathon for the Congo.
I'd like to title this : "A refugee catches the "light" of long distance running in Lakewood and now his 'light' will shine bright at the Olympics!"

[Alex Belisle]

http://espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=tr ... id=7971664

[Ken Lipka]

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/v ... ction=view

[Alex Belisle]

Thanks Ken for putting that link up. What a wonderful video that really gets at his warm personality and the spirit of joy in the lives of the runner and the people he touched. It reminds me of all those 5 a.m. 10 milers and then 10K's in the afternoon with 20+ milers on Sundays. Training was like having another job and I was only mediocre at best.

[Michael Deneen]

He has a GoFundMe account to help him afford the Olympic expsense (it's not cheap!).

If you'd like to learn more, click the link:
https://www.gofundme.com/27jv5hgc

[Stan Austin]

Mike (and Alex) thanks for the link to the Go Fund Me Account. All of a sudden this is personal and family. My cousin was a Denison graduate (woops, my brother, also]. More importantly, another cousin was a Gold Medal winner in the Tokyo (64) Olympics. The family supported him but it w.as still long before the times of Mega Corporation involvement.
When my Grandfather brought that Medal around on a cross country tour in 1965 I thought that that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Time for next guy's turn. I'm gonna donate!

Stan