Lovena Tuley has collected Olympic memorabilia for years.

Candy wrappers, mascot pins, a commemorative bicycle — anything with the Olympic emblem on it has been fair game for her collection.

She has a rare “Athens Olympics 1992″ T-shirt commemorating the Greek city’s unsuccessful bid to be host of the Olympics that year. She even has a replica of a bronze medal that she says her great-grandfather won at the 1896 games.

Twelve years ago Tuley decided to get a permanent souvenir: a tattoo of the Olympic symbol on her lower abdomen.

“You lose the wrappers and the cameras and the bikes,” she said. “But I’ll always have the tattoo.”

Tuley has been to the Olympics twice as a dancer participating in the games’ ceremonies. She now hopes to participate in this summer’s Athens games as a volunteer physical therapist. She is in the second stage of the application pro-cess.

According to the International Olympic Committee Web site, more than 150,000 people worldwide had applied by the end of February for the roughly 60,000 available volunteer positions.

Tuley said if her application was accepted she would be assigned to a particular venue — she hopes it will be the gymnastics arena — along with a team of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.

See Lovena on SheMuscleRaw

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