Nigerian Winter Olympic hopeful needs bone marrow transplant

Seun Adebiyi was a competitive swimmer in Nigeria for 16 years, representing his country at numerous international competitions and breaking a handful of national records. He trained for the 2004 Summer Olympics but missed qualifying by "a fraction of a second".

Five years later, while at Yale Law School, Adebiyi thought of different ways to represent his country in the Olympics and eventually decided that skeleton -- the speedy, head-first luge hybrid -- afforded his best chance. His goal was to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

A cancer diagnosis last June changed those plans. Days after graduating from law school, Adebiyi found out he had two rare and aggressive forms of the disease. He underwent seven weeks of chemotherapy. Now he needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. Like in his Winter Olympics quest, the odds are stacked mightily against him.

As Adebiyi described in a recent blog entry for The Huffington Post, African-Americans are less likely to find a bone marrow match than patients from other races. Only 17 percent of African-Americans find a match, compared to 30 percent of patients overall. Adebiyi's new goal is to change that.

With the burgeoning skeleton career on hold, Adebiyi is seeking to recruit 10,000 new potential donors to the national registry.

You can be tested as quickly as it takes Adebiyi to make a run on the skeleton.

If you're interested in registering, visit the Web site of DKMS Americas, the nation's largest donor center.