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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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[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. " he said. "God brought me over here safe and gave me the opportunity and ability to run. . ...more.
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