Everyone who will contest in the London 2012 Olympic Games kicking off this Friday, July 27, and ending August 12 has a country to represent; right? No, not so! At least one star athlete has no country to represent and will be competing under the Olympic flag as an independent candidate.

Guor Marial, a gifted athlete from South Sudan but a refugee in the USA, qualified for the Olympics last October after meeting the Olympic “A” standard with a run of 2 hours, 14 minutes and 32 seconds at the 2011 Twin Cities Marathon in the USA but technically as no country to represent at the games. Reason: Republic of South Sudan, which recently achieved independence from Sudan, has no National Olympic Committee, a requirement of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for nations to be able to compete in the games. To compound Marial’s problem, he has yet to gain full American citizenship and his status as a permanent resident isn’t enough to allow him to represent the country despite having lived there for 11 years.

“Technically, I was supposed to be a citizen last June, because I did everything, I did my citizen test, I did my interview, I did my fingerprints, and everything was all set. All I needed to do was to go to their office and get my passport and do the ceremony. That was in June 2011, but there has been a security background check . . . and that’s what took everything longer,” Marial disclosed in an interview with Runner’s World.

“With no country to represent, Marial began petitioning the IOC to run as an independent participant under the Olympic flag,” reports Yahoo! Sport.

His campaign soon gained momentum after it was taken over by the NGO change.org, culminating in yesterday’s approval by the IOC for him to compete as an independent athlete.  

“It would be great for the people of South Sudan for me to run as an independent,” Marial had told the New York Times last week. “And the US because that’s where I discovered running. It would be great for the whole world.”

*Photo courtesy MSN