Aug. 8, 2008--Between the start of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing—or, if you're feeling particularly pretentious, the Games of the XXIX Olympiad—and the closing ceremonies on Aug. 24, more than 5,000 hours of live competition will be broadcast in this country by NBC and its affiliated platforms (cable and online). That is more than the amount of live American TV coverage of every previous Olympics combined.

If American broadcasting tendencies stay true to form, a whopping 30 to 45 minutes of that time will be devoted to athletes from outside the United States. In case you come across any of those events, at work or in the wee hours—since it is unlikely they'll be broadcast in prime time—it helps to know what and who you're watching.

That's no easy task, because some 10,000 athletes in 38 sports representing more than 200 countries will be competing. But here's a little tipsheet on Olympian athletes of African descent to get you going. It may even help you impress friends who are at a loss naming an Olympian other than Michael Phelps or LeBron James.

Don't feel bad at all if you had no clue how far our people's influence has spread—much of it surprised me, and I do this for a living.

Usain Bolt

Jamaica, track and field

SAMUEL KUBANI / AFP/Getty Images

Shame on you if you don't know that Bolt—who is 21 years old, 6-foot-4 and actually not nicknamed Lightning—is the World's Fastest Man (that is, the world-record holder in the 100-meter dash). OK, don't feel ashamed. Track and field is still recovering from numerous self-inflicted wounds because of high-profile doping scandals (thanks, Marion Jones); that is largely the reason Bolt's record run of 9.72 seconds, on May 31 in New York, wasn't aired live here despite its happening in a major Olympic-year meet. Worth noting: The 100 might not even be his best event (he's considered a prodigy in the 200), and his first sporting love was cricket.

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Cullen Jones

USA, swimming

Vladimir Rys / Bongarts/Getty Images

Too conventional? Sure, swimming is the marquee event of the Olympics, but Jones, born in the Bronx, is the only African American on the team and only its second black male ever (after Anthony Ervin, in the 2000 Games). He'll swim the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, and whether he medals or not, he'll be thankful to be there. The 24-year-old told NBC's "Today" show in June that he decided to learn how to swim when he was a child and nearly drowned in a neighborhood pool. Now he's dedicated to teaching black children to swim.

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Carlos Morais

Angola, basketball

FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP/Getty Images

Yes, another mainstream sport, but not a mainstream team. One of the defining moments of the Dream Team's run to basketball gold in 1992 was Charles Barkley elbowing an overmatched Angolan player during a typical rout. Sixteen years later, Angola is no pushover: It has won five straight African national championships and just missed making the medal round in Athens in 2004. And it's the second U.S. opponent in this competition. Its best up-and-coming player is 6-foot-3 shooting guard Morais, 22, who played high school ball in the United States (at a tiny Christian school in northwest Georgia), can knock down three-pointers with ease and was MVP of a pre-Olympics tournament last month, where he scored 20 points against China with Yao Ming.

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Osmay Acosta

Cuba, boxing

OMAR TORRES / AFP/Getty Images

This is perennially one of Cuba's strongest sports, and Acosta, 23, a heavyweight (like the legendary Teofilo Stevenson), is the latest in the line. His potential fight with Italy's Clemente Russo, the defending world champ whom he defeated in May—is one of the anticipated highlights of the competition. One reason? Acosta didn't fight in last year's world championships after Cuba pulled out in the wake of defections at the tournament. One of his likely opponents in Beijing is Tuscaloosa's Deontay Wilder.

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