For Faisal Faisal, the 2006 Turin Olympics were both unforgettable and unbearable.

Pinned inside his family's Baghdad home while the opening ceremony from Turin was happening, Faisal couldn't venture outside, couldn't see friends, had no idea when the next explosion was coming. He watched the Olympics with a war outside his window. Adding to his anguish was this: He was almost part of the show, narrowly missing qualifying for the Olympic skeleton competition.

"It crushed my life," Faisal said.

Fast forward nearly four years. Things in Baghdad remain difficult, though improving on many fronts. He still isn't over the disappointment of falling short in 2006. But his personal "mission," he calls it, remains: Faisal Faisal, a 29-year-old Iraqi, is trying yet again to carry his country's flag into the Winter Olympics, his eyes set squarely on reaching the Vancouver Games this February.

His odds are not good.

Of course, making it this far wasn't guaranteed, either.

"When I look back at it, it's so painful, and a part of me does fear missing the Olympics again," Faisal said, his English perfect from years of study abroad. "But that's the risk you take as an athlete. Either your dream comes true or it all gets destroyed and shattered. So I'm going for it again, because of what it will mean."

This all started for Faisal in 1998, when he watched the Nagano Games on television and immediately got the idea to become a Winter Olympian. His family was deeply entrenched in Iraqi athletics, with his father a champion sprinter and an uncle who was an Asian Games champion hurdler. So, Faisal's around-the-world odyssey started. He obtained a student visa to study in Australia, began experimenting with other winter sports - alpine skiing, snowboarding, even speed skating - before settling on skeleton.

Around 2005, he called the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation seeking help. Within two weeks, he was on the ice in Lake Placid, N.Y.

"I've always been taught that the Olympics are about bringing the world together," 2002 Olympic skeleton gold medallist Jim Shea Jr., a Lake Placid native and third-generation Winter Olympian, said at the time. "I think this story is amazing."

So Shea helped Faisal out, as did ...[next page]