The City of St. Francis and St. Francis Area Schools have partnered to host a KARE 11 Sunrise community event on Thursday, Aug. 8 from 5-7 a.m. at St. Francis High School to celebrate local Olympian Dakotah (Bullen) Lindwurm, who will be competing in the marathon at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
KARE 11 Sunrise will do live cut-ins during the celebration, which will feature interviews with representatives from the city and the school district. The SFAS community is invited to the high school to show their support for Dakotah. A Blazin' Trails coffee truck will be on site.
She will don the red, white and blue on August 11 to compete in the women's marathon.
In the U.S. Olympic Trials in February, Dakotah raced to third place with a time of 2 hours, 25 minutes and 31 seconds to claim her spot on the Olympic Team. She is the first St. Francis alum to qualify for the Summer Olympic games.
A 2013 graduate of SFHS, Dakotah competed on the cross country and track and field teams. She was also a goaltender for the St. Francis/North Branch girls hockey team. Dakotah started as a walk-on for the track and field program at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., but finished as an NCAA Division II All-American.
She joined the Minnesota Distance Elite training group after college graduation and was the 2021 and 2022 champion of the Grandma’s Marathon.
[Watch a feature story from KARE 11 about Dakota]