From France to Grand Forks, Louis-Lys Fanucci making an impact at UND

Jun. 10—GRAND FORKS — Jim Vahrenkamp and Tom Scott landed in Amsterdam in October 2023.

The UND track and field coaches then rented a car and drove to Lille in northern France to meet up with an athlete named Louis-Lys Fanucchi.

“We went to this French restaurant right around noon,” Vahrenkamp recalled. “It was just the right temperature. I had been up for about 30 hours and I was struggling to stay awake the whole time.”

Vahrenkamp and Scott battled the lack of sleep. They walked around town and talked to Fanucchi, a long-distance runner, about coming to UND.

It paid off big time.

UND landed Fanucchi — one of several athletes they visited on that trip — and he’s become one of the school’s best athletes.

The sophomore set the school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase last month at the NCAA West Preliminary Round and is now set to compete at the NCAA Outdoor Championships this week at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.

Fanucchi will run in the 3,000-meter steeplechase semifinals at 7:38 p.m. Wednesday. It will be televised by ESPN.

If he reaches the final, it will be held at 7:24 p.m. Friday on ESPN2.

“It’s been pretty awesome,” Fanucchi said. “It’s a breakthrough season for me. Last year was good overall. This year, I made a huge step forward. It was pretty fun.”

It’s a breakthrough that Scott saw coming.

“Tom and I had a conversation last year,” Vahrenkamp recalled. “Tom told me, ‘This is the most talented kid I’ve ever worked with.’ Tom and I have worked together for eight or nine years at this point. We’ve had people who have done some really incredible stuff. For him to make that comment at that point, he knew something was there. The question is whether the person who is talented can put everything together over time.”

Fanucchi has done that.

He finished the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA West Preliminary Round in Fayetteville, Ark., in 8:33.56, setting UND’s school record. His run clinched an automatic bid to the national championships as a top-three heat-finisher. He finished seventh overall.

“I thought it would be really stressful in a big arena,” Fanucchi said of the race in late May. “It ended up being the same. No pressure at all, just a lot of fun. Hopefully, I can do the same thing this week.”

In high school, Fanucchi ran between 20 and 30 miles per week. That has been upped to 70 or 80 miles a week at UND.

“You can’t do that for four weeks and see a big change,” Vahrenkamp said. “But a year or a year and a half, with the time and effort put together, you get results.”

Fanucchi, who had not been to America until he reported to UND last season, said he didn’t set a specific goal for this season. His target is just to excel in every competition he enters.

“When I qualified for regionals for the first time, I was really happy,” Fanucchi said. “When I ended up qualifying for nationals, I was super happy. It was the same. It’s been a lot of new experiences.”

The next experience: competing at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

“He’s an incredibly talented young man,” Vahrenkamp said.