There was a time when running for sport seemed almost obscene to Guor Marial. Who could imagine such a thing? Running wasn’t something you did against friends, or against a clock. You ran against your potential murderers. You ran for your life, not for fun.

“You ran to escape danger,” Marial said Friday in the conference room of the Main Press Center.

Danger was a constant reality when Marial was a young boy during the civil war in Sudan two decades ago. A Dinka tribesman, he was born in 1984, in a small village in what is now South Sudan. He lost eight of his 10 siblings, and another 18 relatives, during the prolonged and bloody conflict in the landlocked East African nation.

Marial was 9 years old when northern rebels captured him and forced him to work as a laborer. He ran away with another boy and lived in a cave before a Sudanese solider captured him and made him into an indentured servant. He finally fled with an aunt to Egypt, as a ward of the United Nations, before moving to the United States as a refugee in the summer of 2001.

He wound up in Concord, N.H., where a gym coach saw him run and was struck by his natural, indefatigable talent for the sport. Marial thought the coach was crazy when he suggested he try running two miles. But he relented, figuring that competing on the track team could be a good way to fit in and make friends in this new country.

Marial was a natural, with a gift for long distance. He got a scholarship to Iowa State and became a college all-American. After college, he moved to Flagstaff, Ariz., to continue his training and work toward his dream of competing in the Olympic Games.

In October of 2011, Marial ran his first career marathon in Minnesota. At a pasta dinner the night before the race, he struck up a friendship with Brad Poore, a marathoner and lawyer from California.Poore realized that Marial was a man without a country. South Sudan had become an independent nation earlier that year. But they did not yet have a national Olympic committee.

Marial had an offer to compete for Sudan, but he refused. He felt it would have been a betrayal of the South Sudanese nation, and all the people who had been killed in the civil war. So Poore told Marial he would make some calls and send some emails on his behalf.

Poore called senators and congressmen. He found sympathetic people in the International Olympic Committee. He called Refugees International, the United Kingdom’s embassy in New York.

“I called basically every media agency in the world,” Poore said. “It seemd the entire world came together for Guor to be here.”

Still, as of a month ago, Marial still wasn’t in the Olympics. The IOC would not budge. Then Phil Hersh, the veteran Olympics writer for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a long blog urging the IOC to let Marial run under the Olympic flag as a “stateless” competitor. Soon, the IOC relented. They granted Marial permission to compete in the marathon as a representative of the IOC.

Marial wasn’t admitted in time to march in the Opening Ceremonies. Three athletes from the Netherlands Antilles, which is no longer a nation, marched as independents. But he is here now, living in the athletes’ village. On Sunday, he will run in the Olympic marathon. His best time is 2:12.55. That’s not medal-worthy, but pretty remarkable when you consider he’s only run the event twice.

“I feel so great,” Marial said. “I am fortunate to be here, and I thank the IOC for such a great opportunity. I’m looking forward to the marathon. I’m going to take this opportunity to raise awareness for refugees all around the world. Not just myself, for any person who doesn’t have a country. It’s great to raise awareness, and especially for the people of South Sudan.

“Representing the five rings, it’s the best,” he said with a laugh. “I’m representing the whole world, basically. That is a great thing.”

Marial hasn’t seen his parents since 1993, when the rebels snatched him from his family. He said they will walk 30 miles to Panrieng County, in Unity State, to watch his race on TV.

“It’s the rainy season right now,” he said, “so there are no vehicles for them, no official road.”

When Marial was living in a refugee camp, he wasn’t aware of the Olympic games. He said there was one TV for everyone. They would crowd around and watch the World Cup or basketball. One of his heroes was Manute Bol, the 7-foot-7 NBA player from Sudan. Bol, a fellow Dinka tribesman, was an activist on behalf of victims of the Sudan wars. He died of kidney failure in 2010.

“I always wanted to meet him,” Marial said. “Unfortunately, he passed away before I could. In Cairo, he came to visit the Sudanese community and went to mass. I saw him walking by, but didn’t get to talk with him. He is with me now in spirt.”

Marial will feel the spirt of all his countrymen, pushing him onward, when he runs the marathon on Sunday. Marial was asked what his message would be to the people of South Sudan.

“I just want to tell them that I love them so much,” he said, “and I’m here for them. The whole country will be with me here, tapping me on the shoulder. I will bring an awareness to the country, so people in South Sudan will be able to dream harder in the years to come.”

It’s a great Olympic story. I have to say, it makes me proud to know that a sports columnist played a big part in convincing the IOC to make it happen. These are the stories that make the Olympics worthwhile. You’d like to think they elevate the human spirit and make the world a better place.

“I will summarize it for you,” Marial said of his childhood. “My life was very hard. People were dying every day and it was survival of the fittest. Were you going to die or not? It was a lot of overwhelming stuff. I didn’t know the outside world. This was the only world I had. I needed to surrive.

“When I left the village and went to Cairo, the world kept opening and opening for me. I kept learning other things. I found that it’s not just about people killing each other, but other things people can do to live peacefully. That has helped me with my life and my running.”

Marial says it’s been reversed now. He can’t imagine not running. He doesn’t run to save his life, but to live it more fully, and to honor his people. He can’t imagine how he could ever stop.