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Running for Peace
an article by Emmanuelle Oulaldj
At 8:15 am, on August 6th, 1945, American dropped the first
uranium atomic bomb called "little boy" on Hiroshima. 95% of the city
was destroyed. 75000 people died instantaneously, with an equal number
dying in the days that followed. Exposed to radiation, the majority of
the survivors would die prematurely. Three days later, at 11.02 am on
August 9th, a plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with similar
effects.
So that these events will never be forgotten, to say no to the
nuclear weapons, the Japanese sport for all association, SHINTAIREN,
organizes each year a symbolic running relay between Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, a distance of 500 km.
This occasion encouraged the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (www.fsgt.org)
from France to take part in the race, in order to express its
solidarity with the victims of the American atomic bombs and with those
still suffering from the after effects.
Run in intense, stifling heat and extreme humidity, the relay was a
mixture of intense emotion, pleasure and performance. Emotion when, as
we passed through towns, children gave us paper cranes, a bird which
became the symbol of the victims of the atomic bombs after Sadako, a
little girl aged 12 who died of leukemia 10 years after the explosion,
made tens of them on her hospital bed.
Sixty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the inhabitants of the two
cities are still suffering and dying. Sixty years after, nuclear
weapons are still present on the planet, but have become much numerous,
and powerful.
The commitment of everyone to build a world of peace is more necessary than ever.
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DISCUSSION
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How can sports promote peace?
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SPORTS AND CULTURE OF PEACE
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[Editor's note. The following article was sent in to CPNN by Ron Davis, Assistant Coach Cross Country / Track and Field
The Ohio State University. ]
'Lost Boy of Sudan' still running at Northern Arizona
By Bob Baum, AP Sports Writer
FLAGSTAFF,
Ariz. — Lopez Lomong was 6 years old when, in the dark of night, he and
three older boys crawled through a small hole in a fence and ran
barefoot for three days to escape their Sudanese rebel captors.
Sixteen years later, in the pines of Flagstaff with a comfortable life he never imagined, he is running still. . .
Next
week, Lomong, a sophomore at Northern Arizona University, will be among
the favorites in the 1,500 meters at the NCAA track and field
championships in Sacramento, Calif.
"I have to picture myself when I was six years old, running from the death I saw.. . ...more.
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