Twins go different routes

Wayne Wilson, a researcher with the LA84 Foundation in Los Angeles, said he could find no other twins who have competed for different countries in the same Olympics -- although siblings have done it, most notably in 1996 when middleweight wrestler Elmadi Jabrailov, of Kazakhstan, beat his brother Lukman, competing for Moldova. "You can't prove a negative," Wilson said. "But I haven't been able to find any others."

Oscar's trip south came decades after his parents made their way north. Hailing from the northern state of Chihuahua, his father arrived in California in 1971 and -- overstaying his legal visitor's document -- eventually found work in a curtain factory.

There he met Gloria Casillas, a small-town girl from the west-central state of Jalisco who had entered the U.S. illegally on her 22nd birthday, hidden under the hood of a truck alongside two other family members.

"I don't want to remember that," said Gloria, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen five years ago.

Her son is far from the first athlete to traverse national boundaries in search of Olympic glory.

Five of the 11 boxers on Mexico's 2008 Olympic team -- including 19-year-old Javier Torres, who is also coached by Luna -- live permanently in the U.S. And it was another Mexican Olympian who trained at Commerce, Francisco "Panchito" Bojado, who first inspired the Molinas' Olympic dreams.

"Ever since we saw him our goal has been to go to the Olympics," Oscar said of Bojado, who fought in Sydney in 2000 before turning pro.

The Commerce Boxing Club's small but tidy gym is tucked in the corner of the Bristow Park branch library in a gritty working-class neighborhood next to the Santa Ana Freeway.

Homemade signs, drawn by the preschool class of a former Commerce boxer, are taped to the walls in tribute to the twins' accomplishments. Yellowed newspaper and magazine clippings tacked to several bulletin boards celebrate the success of other national champions who have trained there.

Luna, who trained at Commerce before he took over the gym, knew the Molina brothers were a rare pair when they first walked in a decade ago.

"They were just energetic little kids," he remembered. "They were tough, humble, nice kids. [But] when I started working with them you could tell right away they had something special. They were talented from the very beginning."