Nothing Could Block Lindi Marcusen From Qualifying For Paris

Never stand between Lindi Marcusen, her husband Nate, and the start line of a race.

“When people ask me how supportive Nate is, I tell them this story,” said Marcusen, an above-the-knee amputee sprinter and jumper.

In February, the couple traveled to the University of Washington in Seattle for Marcusen to run the 60-meter dash in the Husky Classic. But on their way to the track, the couple got stuck behind a finicky gate in a parking lot. They fed the gate their ticket, but the arm wouldn’t lift.

“We called and tried everything we could, and they just said they couldn’t do anything about it,” Marcusen said.

With no other option, Nate drove through the gate.

“And it wasn’t that easy to break,” she said. “But we made it on time. That’s how supportive Nate is.”

The story is emblematic of Marcusen’s Paralympic career.

Seven years ago — just two weeks after she and Nate wed — her car malfunctioned on a two-lane highway in Sun Valley, Idaho, causing her to veer into oncoming traffic and collide with a pickup truck. Marcusen lost her right leg on impact, and she suffered a traumatic brain injury. Doctors told her family she might not survive.

Two weeks later, she was awake and on the long road to recovery.

Each time a barrier sprung up, she rose to meet it head-on. The journey led to the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials this past July, where Marcusen set an American record of 14.95 seconds in the 100-meter T63. Then in her Paralympic debut in Paris, the native of Spokane, Washington, placed sixth in the 100-meter and eighth in the long jump.

Marcusen, 28, identifies three distinct emotional stages during her healing.

“The first was thinking, ‘This is the worst thing that could have happened,’” she said. “And for a while it was that. I was a gymnast for 14 years, so I loved being able to move freely.”

As she grew more determined to take control of her life, her thoughts turned. Maybe the accident would end up being the best thing that could have happened.

“That didn’t feel right either, just because of how many things in my life were impacted — from relationships to where I was living, and not all of that was super positive,” she said.

Eventually, Marcusen concluded the accident was neither positive nor negative.

“It’s just something that happened,” she said. “I want to go forward and soak up as many positives that can come from it as possible, and let it expand me into the individual and athlete I have the potential to be.”

While Marcusen was in rehab, an occupational therapist recommended she contact ParaSport Spokane, which she did about a year and a half after the accident.

“Once she joined us, Lindi didn’t miss the next 150 workouts,” said David Greig, ParaSport Spokane’s development director and track and field head coach. “You could count on her like clockwork to be there.”

Marcusen worked, via trial and error, with prosthetics experts and had to relearn many day-to-day functions.

“Lindi had the right mindset to improve, no matter what or how small the exercise,” Greig said. “Dealing with a brain injury, there’s a lot of repetition needed, and a lot of motor pathway development. But the body is remarkable, and it always figures out a way.”

“The key was to just keep showing up and doing the work,” Marcusen said. “Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time. You can’t rush getting stronger, you can’t rush developing your technique as a runner and a long jumper.”

In June 2021, she competed at the Paralympic trials in Minneapolis, trying to qualify for Tokyo in the 100. Once again, she hit a barrier.

“I fell out of my blocks and slipped; I started my 100 meters from my stomach,” she said. “I was frustrated that I just couldn’t put together my best race at that time. I thought it was going to come a little bit easier for me. I had put in so much work; I didn’t miss a training session, all through COVID.”

Missing the Tokyo Games made qualifying for Paris all the sweeter. Eleven members of her family — including Nate, of course, plus her parents and grandmother — traveled to the City of Light to watch her big moment. Marcusen called the time together “magical.”

“Ironically, the Games was the first major championship team I’ve made,” Marcusen said. “It was so transformational for me as an athlete, to just give me so much confidence. I missed five teams up to the point before Paris, so I got thrown straight into the fire, and I feel like I rallied.”

“For Lindi to be the fastest ever above-the-knee (amputee) woman in the U.S., we knew there was potential for that to happen this year,” Greig said. “We really take a growth mindset with all of our athletes and try to develop the whole human versus just the performance. Lindi was ready for it when it happened, and it’s awesome to see.”

Marcusen, who balances athletics with a full-time job as a marketing manager for a therapy practice, intends to keep training through the 2028 Games and, perhaps, beyond.

“I took a week off after Paris, which was hard for me to do,” she said. “I was just itching to get back to training.”

Lynn Rutherford has covered five Olympic Games, including the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing for TeamUSA.org. Based in New York, she is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.