Word: menyoli
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...there were a prize for Most Unlikely to Succeed in Sport at Salt Lake, Isaac Menyoli would be a front-runner. The 29-year-old cross-country skier from Cameroon is his nation's first-ever Winter Games representative. He hits the trails in Salt Lake with a mission in mind: to draw attention to the need for AIDS education in his homeland. He spoke with TIME's Jeff Chu last week from his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Excerpts...
...Menyoli got in touch with the International Ski Federation, which told him to go to his national Olympic organization. "I was surprised that a Cameroonian could be interested," says Colonel Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, president of Cameroon's National Olympic and Sports Committee. "But I heard the idea and supported him." With his country's administrative backing and his own savings, Menyoli set off for Alaska and Canada last fall for his five required qualifying races. He placed last in four races and second-to-last in one, but finishing was all that mattered...
...where he will line up for the 15-km classical race alongside some of his skiing heroes. He's looking forward to meeting World Cup leader Per Elofsson of Sweden, who is a gold-medal threat at every distance. And he wants to talk to the Italians; one of Menyoli's favorite cross-country moments was the finish of the Lillehammer men's relay, when Italy shocked the Norwegians at the line, winning by no more than...
...Menyoli's Olympic effort has already cost him $15,000. ("If I had given the money straight to Africa," he says, "I probably wouldn't have saved many people.") Juggling work, training, home life and studies - he's still working on his master's in architecture - has been hard. Since the press first caught on to his feelgood tale, it has been even harder: "The media, they come calling, saying, 'I want the story!' ... I don't have time to train, to work." And there's a little pressure from home. His parents think the investments of time and money...
...Cameroonian proverb says that when a man asks questions, he cannot avoid the answers. When Menyoli asked himself what would happen if he became an Olympian, he knew the answer. "I'm such an amateur skier," he says. "It's tough." But the sport isn't really the point. Menyoli's Olympic-sized ambition is. "I want to ski for a reason," he says. "I want to tell people that they really have to watch out, that AIDS is serious." He'll deserve a medal if he gets that message across...