Allen Belo is using the sport he loves as his ticket to experience another culture.

Belo, 11, is in Amsterdam, Holland, participating in the fifth annual Youth Friendship Games, an international competition for pre-teen and teenage athletes. Belo, a swimmer, got the chance to participate through the People to People Sports Ambassador program.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower started the program in 1956 to help citizens of different countries forge personal relationships, according to the organization's Web site. Eisenhower hoped the relationships established would temper political tensions.

"(My dad and I) went to the Web...