At the age of 17, Kamalturk Yalqun was one of several students chosen to help carry the Olympic flame ahead of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
Now, he is an activist in the United States calling for a boycott of the Winter Games over China's treatment of his Uyghur ethnic community.
"It seems to me that our sense of global citizenship and sportsmanship is not moving forward with these Olympic Games anymore," Mr Yalqun said in a phone interview from Boston, where he lives in exile.
Since he took part in the Olympic torch relay and later attended the Games as a representative of his home region of Xinjiang, in western China, Beijing has imposed harsh policies on the Muslim Uyghurs and split apart Mr Yalqun's family.
With the Olympic flame set to return to Beijing for Friday's opening ceremony, these Games are attracting renewed global controversy as they spotlight the host country's treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.
Kamaltrk Yalqun stands with an Olympic torch after running the relay to help carry the flame for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Source: Kamaltrk Yalqun/AP
According to researchers, authorities have locked up an estimated one million or more members of minority ethnic groups in mass internment camps over the past several years - most of them Uyghurs.
Human rights groups have dubbed these the "Genocide Games," as the United States and other countries including Australia have cited rights abuses in leading a diplomatic boycott of the event.
China denies any human rights abuses, calling them the "lie of the century."
It describes the policies in Xinjiang as a "training program" to combat terrorism.
Mr Yalqun recalls being proud to participate in China's first Olympics. Those feelings vanished after his father disappeared.
In 2016, Yalqun Rozi, an editor of books on Uyghur literature, was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to "subvert" the Chinese state.
Mr Yalqun never saw his father again, only catching a glimpse of him in a Xinjiang documentary by state broadcaster CGTN five years later.
Mr Yalqun moved to the United States for graduate school in 2014 and has stayed.
He has regularly joined protests in Boston calling for the boycott of the Winter Games.
Mr Yalqun said he was given the chance to go to the Games as part of a youth camp and he was later picked to be a torch bearer.
The morning of the run was on a hot July day and went by "in a blink," he said. He ran a section that started at the eastern end of the Great Wall on the coast in the city of Qinhuangdao.
"The distance for us to run was very short, maybe 30m," he said with a chuckle.
He kept the tall aluminium torch as a souvenir. On the bus to Beijing, he was besieged by curious fellow passengers who asked for a photo. Everyone was caught up in the excitement, he said.
The torch and torch bearer uniform helped smooth things over when the police came to his hotel that night. Police regularly conducted checks on Uyghur travelers in big cities.
Mr Yalqun now wants little to do with his home country and is disappointed with the diplomatic boycott - he wants a full boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
"It should be a collective responsibility when such kind of atrocities are happening," he said. "It's heartbreaking for me to see such a cold response from people."
