Diane Nukuri

Diane Nukuri

Diane Nukuri at the 2012 Olympics "Burundi Day"
Personal information
Born	(1984-12-01) 1 December 1984 (age 32) Kigozi, Burundi
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	59 kg (130 lb)
Sport
Country	Burundi
Achievements and titles
Olympic finals	2012, marathon, 31st
Personal best(s)	5000 m: 15:59.39

Diane Nukuri (born December 1, 1984 in Kigozi-Mukike) is a Burundian professional distance runner. She competed for Burundi as a fifteen-year-old in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney in the 5,000m and in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London in the marathon. Nukuri ran for The University of Iowa in college.

Nukuri began running in her early teens, starting little more than a year prior to her first Olympic experience (the 2000 Olympics in Sydney). She ran in the junior IAAF World Cross Country Championships twice, placing 18th in 2000 and 27th the following year. She won the bronze medal in the 10,000 meters at the 2001 Francophone Games in Ottawa, Canada. After the games, Nukuri fled to Toronto, seeking asylum from the Burundi civil war. At the time, Nukuri had already lost her father to the conflict, and she knew she would have no running career had she stayed in Burundi. She was granted asylum, and lived with relatives in Pickering, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto.

Nukuri continued to run while living in Canada, and began drawing interest from cross country and distance track coaches from American universities, in particular The University of Iowa. However, Nukuri spoke very little English, so she attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kansas. At Butler, Nukuri trained under Kirk Hunter while learning English (her third language), taking classes, and amassing 9 NJCAA national championships and 17 NJCAA All-American honors. After two seasons at Butler, Nukuri transferred to The University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa to work with coach Layne Anderson, who recruited Diane directly out of high school. Anderson was largely responsible for Nukuri attending Butler.