Cheek last made headlines for something that happened off the ice -- the Chinese Embassy revoked his visa shortly before he was set to leave the U.S. for the Beijing Olympics. What prompted China's action was Cheek's involvement in Team Darfur, an organization of international athletes he co-founded to bring awareness to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Cheek's intention -- and he made no secret about it -- was to talk to athletes, the media and the public in Beijing about China's financial support of a government that has brutalized Darfur's people.
Growing up in Angola, Emanuel Neto can remember the gruesome images that had him and his family living in fear. A fear that one day a soldier might force you to cook and eat your own child. It’s these experiences that have Emanuel Neto appreciating the very air he breathes.
Neto, a 23 year-old senior at Stony Brook University, has lived a life that very few college students have, and seen things that most Americans can not even begin to imagine. Neto’s upbringing has made him sensitive towards the war and genocide in Darfur, a situation that a lot of Americans fail to recognize.
“People will only pay attention when something happens and it involves the integrity of American values,” says Neto. “Not enough is done to raise awareness about what is going on.” Neto’s mother had a vision of her child one day studying in the states, playing basketball and using his image to help people. Neto has used his image as a college athlete and member of the Angolan National Basketball team to help raise such awareness.
Because 9 American Team Darfur athletes were listed as such by the Chinese government in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics. Yesterday, USA Today broke the story that:
China's government was so concerned about the possibility of athlete demonstrations in the Beijing Olympics that it created a list of nine U.S. athletes and one assistant coach it thought might cause trouble at the Games, according to an internal U.S. Olympic Committee e-mail obtained by USA TODAY...
The list was given to USOC officials in a July 8 meeting by Shu Xiao, minister counselor for cultural affairs at the Chinese embassy in Washington, according to the e-mail.
You can read the whole e-mail here, but apparently
Team Darfur triathlete and Special Representative to the UN World Tourism Organization ST-EP Foundation attended the Beijing Games as a supporter of the US Team and a high-level panelist.
Tracy was proud to be attending the Beijing Olympic Games as member of Team Darfur, a coalition of professional athletes committed to ending the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Although athletes faced significant restrictions to speaking out about human rights at the Olympics, Team Darfur athletes still ensured that the Olympic dream reached out to the people of Darfur.
Dominic Luka is a senior at Norfolk State University where he has excelled in Track and Field. One of the "Lost Boys" Dominic is now the reigning cross-country and 1,500-meter champion in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Dominic has also excelled in the javelin. Dominic is majoring in management information systems and will graduate next December.
We asked Dominic why he joined Team Darfur and this is what he had to say:
It has now been 5 years since the Genocide in Darfur and there is no change happening there. We need a change in Darfur. The reason why I joined Team Darfur was to put my effort and support to help put an end to the Genocide in Darfur. I was always disturbed by the Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for denying the Darfur Genocide. Reading everyday on the news at www.sudan.net, "The United Nation says up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. But the Sudanese Government says only 10,000 have been killed."
I thank God for helping me come to the great land of opportunity. I was once like those who are suffering in Darfur. But God help me through and brought me here. I'm pray that one day one time God will do the same miracle to the people of Darfur. He will show them the way and the bright light to a better future.
Team Darfur swimmer Adrian Turner has a piece in this month's edition of Voices of Tomorrow.
My newspaper today is quiet. Sat on the train trundling towards the north of England, I go through the usual inconvenience of a two-minute wrestling match with a broadsheet. The other passengers loll silently in unison in their seats, as I noisily fold the epic pages of the paper and try my best not to elbow my innocent neighbour repeatedly in the chin.
My newspaper today is quiet. Among the quotidian stories, my newspaper murmurs of four multi-millionaires who have decided to stop funding the country's (mis)leading political party, the sale of a Monet for £40.9m (US$70m) and a new yellow-card cautioning system for cricketers behaving badly on the field of play (...for slurping their tea perhaps?).
The Olympic flame was lit in my heart as a teenager when I read a book by Gold medal rower Brad Lewis called "Assault on Lake Cassidas." After starting my quest as a rower, I eventually turned to archery. For the past eleven years the Olympics have defined the decisions I have made, large and small.
The pursuit of excellence has challenged my faith and my commitment to persevere. It has taught me to stick up for myself and then to stand for causes greater than myself. One such cause is Darfur.
Although I have been to two Olympics, Athens and Beijing, it was not in the capacity that I had hoped. In 2004, I was a spectator attending the games so that I might gain valuable experience for my anticipated trip as an athlete four years later. The Olympiad came and went but a tear in my teres minor postponed my dreams yet again. Determined to go to China, I took a job as a journalist.
In Beijing, being a journalist was surprisingly similar to being an athlete. Like an athlete, I had my own uniform and I even lived in a village. I had accreditation and access to restricted areas. But unlike an athlete, I was able to experience the other side of the fence, looking for story angles and seeking out good quotes. Aiming to get things done under deadline was a performance in and of itself.
As it turns out, I didn't know how lucky I was to be in China. Just days earlier, another member of Team Darfur who was supposed to work in a similar position to me had been denied a visa and was forced to stay in the United States. While I was at the Olympics both Joey Cheek and Brad Greiner, the co-founders of Team Darfur, had their visas denied.
No sooner had I arrived than I was told to remove my "Pray for China" wristband and asked not wear my Team Darfur clothes. Having freedom taken away from me for the first time in my life was an eye opener. On July 19th, two days after arriving in Beijing, I wrote in my journal, "I'm glad that my heart is hurting. For the first time since I started learning about Darfur, it matters so much that the violence stops because I don't have the freedom to express it.
Although athletes faced significant restrictions to speaking out about human rights at the Olympics, Team Darfur athletes ensured that the Olympic dream reached out to the people of Darfur.
Four Team Darfur athletes were honored by their teammates and named to carry their nation's flag into the opening ceremonies, including Lopez Lomong who carried the US flag.
Team Darfur members met on the last day of the Games to sign the Olympic Truce wall (see photo at right).
Team Darfur members did interviews when they could, including Canadian soccer players and Team Darfur athletes there as reporters.
Team Darfur athletes were represented on high level panels about the power of sport to help create peace around the world.
Dozens of people were killed and more than 100 were injured Monday in a government assault on a huge camp for displaced people in Darfur, the conflict-riddled region in western Sudan, according to witnesses and leaders at the camp...
Hussein Abu Sharati, a spokesman for the roughly 90,000 displaced people living in the camp, said dozens of heavily armed vehicles operated by Sudanese security forces surrounded the camp at dawn and opened fire.
The Sudanese police released a statement in Nyala on Monday saying that the operation had been carried out to seize weapons stored at the camp. It contended that Darfur rebel groups were planning to use the weapons to carry out assassinations...
The United Nations said in a statement that it was “gravely concerned” about reports of attacks on civilians in the camp. But aid officials and displaced people expressed dismay that nearby peacekeeping troops, part of a joint mission of the United Nations and the African Union, did not intervene.
For the past few days I have found myself reading "Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond" a book by actor Don Cheadle and activist John Prendergast. I've had the book now for a few months thanks to my joining Team Darfur, and although I wanted to continue to take an active part in all that Team Darfur and the Save Darfur group are doing to bring an end to the conflict, the book just sat on my shelf. I wear my Team Darfur wristband everyday, especially during training or when I'm at any event as an athlete. But still, the book sat on the shelf. But there was something about the haunting look in the little child's eyes on the cover of the book and I knew that I needed to sit down and read.
Team Darfur triathlete and Special Representative to the UN World Tourism Organization ST-EP Foundation attended the Beijing Games as a supporter of the US Team and a high-level panelist. 
Tomorrow.
f heavily armed vehicles operated by Sudanese security forces surrounded the camp at dawn and opened fire. 
