10%

Meet Mark

Faces of Rio 2016

By Rachel Tobias

August 7^th, 2016

Meet mark.

We came across Mark in a rather unlikely way. My friend Jose and I were making our way to Maracanã for Opening Ceremonies, and were increasingly in awe of the vast number of police and military personnel. Of course, when the [amusing] opportunity came to take our photo with them, we didn’t refuse.

Mark walked up mid-photo, donning his fantastic Olympics rings glasses, in a bit of a panic. “There won’t be any problems, will there?” Mark asked, with his hands raised in earnest as if to implore us to stop what we were doing. When we assured him the police had invited us to take a photo, he immediately grabbed his camera and asked us to do the same for him.

Write your story here. (Optional)

Mark’s accent was impossible to place, and we quickly learned this was a result of having been raised in Kenya and Uganda, and then moving to Holland for school after his parents had passed away when he was quite young. In Holland, he became a competitive runner. His event was the 200m.

Now, Mark travels all over the world to watch Athletics. He loves the track, and he attends every major track and field championship, including the Olympics.

I fawned over his entire get-up, his hat full of pins, his glasses. I mean, those glasses. Of course, he has five additional pairs as back-ups in case these ones break.