Peter (left) and Alex Lomong at the New York Armory in March.
In March, a week after Lopez Lomong set the American indoor 5,000m record at the New York Armory, his younger brothers Peter and Alex made their own trip to the storied venue. Running the 4×800m for Fork Union Military Academy, a boys boarding school in central Virginia, they led the team to a sub-8:00 performance. It was an impressive clocking, especially because Peter and Alex were underclassmen. But in the post-race photographs, their eyes held a bleak, faraway cast. They'd just learned that in South Sudan, their oldest brother, Abraham, had been killed in the violence that continues after the country's civil war.
"That was really difficult for them," says Maj. Winston Brown, their coach. "They've had to grow up quickly." Alex, 15, and Peter, 16, were born in the Sudan, spent their early years in Kenya, and came to the U.S. in 2009 as coltish middle schoolers. Now both are 6-foot-1 with lean, muscular builds. Like Lopez, they wear diamond earrings. As Peter explains, "When your brother does something, you want to be like him."
Yet Peter and Alex had never even heard of Lopez when they were growing up. Born in Kimotong, a village on the savannah in what is now South Sudan, Lopez was kidnapped by a Muslim militia when he was 6, long before Peter and Alex were alive. With friends, he escaped to a refugee camp in Kenya and subsisted on a meal a day for a decade before a sponsor family brought him to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Lopez's parents had presumed him dead, and Alex and Peter were never told about their lost older brother. Seeking solace from the civil war, their mother moved south to Kenya, where she would have access to a bank, cell phone reception and a school for Alex--none of which were found in Kimotong. Peter stayed behind with their father to tend to the family's cattle. "I would get up at 5 in the morning and milk the cows," he recalls. "I'd be in the fields all day. That was my job."
When Peter came to live in Kenya in 2005, he and Alex hadn't seen each other for three years. Two years later, there was another reunion when a stranger in a Land Rover showed up in their village: Lopez. Sixteen years after his capture, his feats on the track at Northern Arizona University inspired the producers of HBO's "Real Sports" to reunite him with his family. "It was insane," says Alex. "We didn't know he was our brother." His return brought an onset of emotions. "We were happy and sad at the same time," says Peter. "It was all mixed up."
Lopez told the boys he wanted them to come with him to the U.S. "We said, 'OK, we must go,'" Peter remembers. He pauses, thinking of his parents. "They didn't want me to go, because I was taking care of the cows. But I wanted to see something different."
Brown watched that HBO special with his wife and resolved that he would bring the boys to Fork Union. That night, he contacted a FUMA alum who had run in college with Lopez's coach at Northern Arizona. A year later, Brown finally met Lopez at the 2008 U.S. Olympic trials, where Lopez qualified for the 1500m team. On his victory lap he shouted to Brown, "Coach, I'll get the boys when the Olympics are over!"
He was as good as his word, and in February 2009, Alex and Peter arrived in the U.S. Neither boy knew any English. Initially, the language barrier was "a nightmare," says Alex. "You just sit there--you don't know what's going on. You learn the hard way." Alex also had tuberculosis, which Brown believes he contracted in Kenya.
After living for three and a half years with the Browns in their off-campus house, the boys are healthy, fit and fluent. Last spring, they led FUMA to the Virginia Independent Schools state meet title in the 4×800m in 7:54.66, a new record. In the open 800m, Peter, a sophomore, ran 1:57.61. Alex, a freshman, ran 50.19 in the 400m. Both dream of running for the University of Oregon, where they would be near Lopez, who trains in Portland. Beyond that? "I want to run in the Olympics in Rio," says Peter. "But I will have to train very, very hard."
For now, the boys maintain a relatively modest training schedule, logging between 35 and 50 miles a week. "We're not rushing anything," says Brown. "Right now, they're just putting one foot in front of the other."
Because of Lopez's busy racing schedule, Alex and Peter see him only sporadically, but when the elite season is over, they're looking forward to his next visit. In the meantime, the brothers are in touch by phone. When talk turns to racing, Peter says Lopez keeps his advice simple: "Find the best position and stay put. If nobody's setting a fast pace, go for it. Just don't look back."
