ORLANDO, Fla. — St. Francis native Dakotah Lindwurm became the first Minnesotan to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lindwurm finished third on Saturday in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials with a time of 2:25:21.
"It's just been a whirlwind, I don't even think that it's sunk in that I can call myself an Olympian now," Lindwurm told KARE 11. "I've just had this belief that I could do it, I felt it in my gut."
This isn't the first time Lindwurm has stood in the winner's circle after a long-distance race. She placed first in Duluth's Grandma's Marathon in 2021 and 2022, and came in second in 2019's Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis.
Lindwurm wasn't the only American woman to sail across Saturday's finish line to qualify for the Games. Fiona O’Keeffe smashed the Women’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials record in her debut at the distance to secure her spot in Paris.
O’Keeffe finished with a time of 2 hours, 22 minutes, 10 seconds to break the American marathon trials mark of 2:25:38 set by Shalane Flanagan in 2012 in Houston.
Lindwurm, a one-time goaltender on her high school ice hockey team in Minnesota, told KARE 11 that she went to Florida the day after Thanksgiving to get used to the weather.
Molly Seidel, who captured Olympic bronze at the Tokyo Games, didn’t take the start line because of a knee injury.
In the men's race, two-time defending U.S. marathon trials champion Galen Rupp wound up in 16th place. At 47, Abdi Abdirahman was trying to make his sixth Olympic team, but he dropped out during the race.
The course along the streets of Orlando started with a 2 1/2-mile loop before branching into three eight-mile loops on the fairly flat course.
Listen in to an extended conversation with Lindwurm here:
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