A Concord movie theater turned on a projector before dawn yesterday to show live footage of former resident Guor Marial running in the Olympics.
At 5:30 Sunday morning, Red River Theatres in Concord opened its doors before the start of the Olympics Men's Marathon.
Guor Marial, a Concord High School graduate and refugee from South Sudan, was about to begin the 26 mile race through London.
Red River Theatres organized the free event to show Marial competing live.
But Rusty Cofrin, who coached Marial in high school track, said the Olympian doubted anybody would come.
"I said, 'Well I'll be there,' you know, I said I can remember showing up for summer running. I used to think the same thing, no one's gonna be there. I'd show up and there'd be twenty guys there. That was only because he was there."
And at six in the morning, the theater was full, and cheering for Marial from the starting line to the finish, in forty-seventh place.