Photo courtesy of Victah Sailer/PhotoRun
“Without running, I would be nowhere.”
One of our newest athletes, Diane Nukuri Johnson of Burundi and now Iowa, has quite a life story to tell. Several publications in her adopted home state of Iowa have covered Diane in the past few years, detailing her life’s story from running back and forth to school while growing up in Burundi, to her experiences in civil war at home while still a child, to her appearance at age 15 as Burundi’s sole female track and field athlete at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
The articles track Diane’s education from catholic school in Canada, to Butler Community College in Wichita, Kansas where Diane was nine-time Juco national champion, winning two titles each in the mile, 3000 meters, 5000 meters, and half marathon, and one title in cross-country. Diane then made the transition in 2006 to the University of Iowa, where she blossomed under the tutledge of head coach Layne Anderson. Diane became the school’s first-ever regional champion and went on to place eighth at the 2007 NCAA Division I Cross-Country Championship Meet where she was an All American.
Diane is now a multi-lingual 25 year-old married college graduate. She is focusing her sights on a marathon debut this autumn, and longer term on the 2012 London Olympic Games. She still lives in Iowa City, training under Anderson’s direction. As she looks to the future and behind, Diane says on the importance of running, “without it, I would be nowhere. Running was my way out.” Fiona Fallon, a former Iowa teammate summed up Nukuri’s impact best. “She’s an amazing person on and off the field. She leads by example. We were brought up in our own world, and sometimes we may forget how much harder someone had to work to get where they are.”
See below for two stories with more details on Diane, as well as a pair of Flotrack interviews.
