IF things do not go according to plan, Lopez Lomong will run just 1500 metres in these Olympic Games. If the moon is made of cheese, he will win gold. Either way, tomorrow night, when he will carry the US flag in the opening ceremony in Beijing, the world will know exactly how far the 23-year-old has travelled in his young life.

Joseph Lopepe (Lopez) Lomong is one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan. He was kidnapped from his village in Kimotong at the age of six, escaped by tunnelling under the wire fence of his compound and spent three days on the run. Having fled across the border into Kenya, his home for ten years was the Kakuma refugee camp.

In Tully (population: 927), New York State, Roger and Barbara Tully saw the notice on the board of their local church highlighting the plight of the children of Darfur and offered themselves as foster parents. Joseph Lomong arrived on their doorstep seven years ago, enrolled in Tully High School, discovered a natural gift for athletics, became an NCAA champion in Northern Arizona University and surprisingly qualified for the Olympics by finishing second in the US trials. A year ago to the day of his Olympic selection, he was granted US citizenship. Last year, he returned to his village and saw his own grave, dug by his family in the absolute certainty that their son was no longer alive.

It is therefore with some justification that he was unanimously elected as flag-bearer by the captains of the US Olympic sports at a meeting today and with spectacularly good timing hurled himself into the politically murky waters of China’s relationship with his native land at the precise moment President Bush arrived in Beijing. Depending on whose figures you believe, the UN puts the death toll in Darfur at 300,000, while an estimated 2.2 million people have been displaced in the war.

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Lomong was one of the lucky ones, not just in finding a new home in the US, but in finding a talent that enabled him to publicise his extraordinary story on the most public stage of all. “I came a long way from running through the wilderness to save my life and now I'm running for fun,” he said.

The publicity that Lomong will generate could not have come at a more sensitive time for the hosts, who are rapidly discovering the dangers of inviting the world into their backyard. China has long been the subject of international criticism for not exercising their considerable economic and political muscle to help the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan. But they did not exactly help their cause by revoking the visa of Joey Cheek, the American speed skater, on Tuesday.

Cheek is the co-founder of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness of the crisis in the region. The decision by the authorities here was immediately condemned in the US Senate. Senator Feingold of Wisconsin called on China to “use the Olympic Games to push for an end to the conflicts in the Sudan” and for President Bush “to raise the issue specifically with the Chinese government during his visit.” Not surprisingly, Lomong is a member of Team Darfur. By tomorrow night, he will be the most celebrated member of Team Darfur.

Perhaps too Lomong will spare a thought - and there is a lot of time spare in an opening ceremony - for the nine-strong delegation from his former country, Sudan, and, in particular, for Abdalla Abdel Gadir, who will be competing alongside him in the 1500m. Lomong first discovered the Olympics when he spent five Kenyan shillings - a few pence - to watch a telecast of Michael Johnson’s victory in the 400m at the Sydney Olympics. “Now I’m running for America and I’m grateful for that,” he said. “America is a land for everybody.”

The US squad for the men’s 1500m is proof of that. Bernard Lagat, a double Olympic medallist and favourite for the event, is Kenyan-born but now a naturalised American, while Leonel Manzano is Mexican-American, whose father crossed the border 16 times before he became a legal US resident.

The role of the flag-bearer is a curious one, a source of a lifetime’s pride for the bearer, a source of indifference to everyone else by morning. Lomong’s history will endure long after the winners and losers have been recorded in the dry ledger of the Games.