Bol’s bolt a bridge for a nation

Peter Bol is a man and a symbol.

He is a young man who worked hard, trained hard and made personal sacrifices – as one must, to achieve his best.

Peter Bol celebrates winning his semi-final.Credit:Getty Images

So far, his best has involved astonishing achievements, including breaking the Oceania and Australian 800-metre record – twice!

While breaking the record he set just a few days before, he rewrote Australian history by becoming the first Australian in 53 years to make an Olympic 800 metres final.

This Wednesday, Peter Bol competes for gold. And as he prepares to start that race, many people across Australia, including my family and I, will be watching him at home.

We will be cheering, shouting, praying, and even pleading that by the grace of God everything comes together to create a moment, that he reaches the promise of his training, talent and his dreams.

Australian runner Peter Bol will compete in the 800m final on Wednesday.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

We will be cheering for Peter Bol. We will be cheering for Australia. We will be cheering for ourselves reflected in his journey because Peter Bol is also a symbol.

Peter Bol is a symbol that ties together themes I want to untie and yet maintain.

I want to untie his personal achievements from the yoke of “the refugee” who “was born in Sudan but fled the war-torn country when he was four”, so that he may stand in his own glory, just as we revelled in Rohan Browning’s achievement without needing to know which disaster he survived.

I want to untie it from my own personal need to use him as proof, holding him up to proclaim, look, look, we are not all “gangs”. To claim that we deserve a place in this country.

To use his example as evidence that we occupy, like all, the spectrum of human experiences. That we rise and fall. And that when we fall, it is not because we are inherently and permanently condemned to be less than human.

That our whole human story in this country is both Peter’s story, the stories of those who struggle, and the many unheard stories of ordinary people living ordinary life.

Yet, I don’t wish for Bol’s achievements to be the standard one must attain to be accepted into society. We will be equally caged, as we often are, by such a narrative.

A narrative that requires that to be welcomed as a fellow citizen, worthy of their place in this country, one must live an extraordinary life, would be an impossible standard. It would serve to exclude many from the protections of citizenship.

Still, with all the difficulties imposed by being a symbol, Bol’s achievement displays the stories we can tell ourselves as individuals and as a nation.

As individuals it shows the invaluable contributions of interpersonal relationships, and the way none of us is ever truly self-made.

From the parents who managed to protect and raise him in a refugee camp, to the student at his school who told his teacher, “Miss, Peter can run”, to his teacher who enlisted her father to nurture Peter’s running by helping him with purchasing running shoes, signing him up to athletics clubs, each person was a link to Tokyo 2021.

When you come to a new country with little to nothing, that assistance of others is instrumental in making the transition.

Peter Bol with Brian Moore, the father of his teacher Helen Leahy, who helped nurture his talent.

For me it involved friends who bought my law textbooks, who dropped off food items, who contributed financially, who educated me about the nature of the cultural landscape I was becoming a part. I owe them more than I would be able to repay in one lifetime.

Bol’s story also reflects modern Australia. To represent your country is a great honour.

Bol was born in Sudan, but he chose Australia as his country. And from the outpouring of support for him, it appears it is also a country that has chosen him too.

Many at this moment only see the green and gold. It doesn’t matter where he comes from, as one commentator said, he is Aussie. And we are all with him, but as his teacher also said, it is also “all Peter”.

As a South Sudanese Australian struggling with my own sense of identity and belonging, on Wednesday I’ll get to forget that for a few moments, all thanks to Peter Bol, a young man and a symbol of what as a nation we can aspire to be, not just at the Olympics, but every day.

Peter Bol’s bid for 800m gold at the Tokyo Olympics kicks off at 10.05pm on Wednesday.

Nyadol Nyuon is a lawyer and human rights advocate.

Most Viewed in Sport

From our partners

Source: Read Full Article