Princeton Shaves Men's Swimming

Shaving. We all do it, or have done it at one point. At least everyone hopes so.

However, in the world of competitive swimming, shaving takes on a slightly different meaning. When a team shaves, a statement is made that the team is taking the meet very seriously and hopes to have its lowest times of the season.

The storyline at this weekend's Harvard-Yale-Princeton Double Dual Meet at Blodgett Pool is that Princeton shaved and Harvard didn't.

The results of the meet, therefore, are a little deceiving. Both Harvard and Princeton handily defeated Yale--130-27 and 131-32, respectively. Princeton defeated Harvard by a 83-80 margin, but this was, at least according to Harvard swimmers, a meaningless loss.

"I had mixed feelings after the meet," said junior Matt Cornue. "I was excited about the way people performed in the middle of training season. This was Princeton's season, they shaved and were rested. We just basically swam through the meet. However, we should have won, it just kind of slipped out of our hands."

However, the overall feeling after the weekend was a positive one. For a scruffy Harvard team to compete so closely to a smooth Princeton team bodes well for Harvard's future.

"Take Denis Sirringhaus for example," explained junior Ben Odell. "He lost in the 1,000 freestyle by about two tenths of a second (9:11.64 to 9:11.76). That just shows what he is going to do when he shaves. It cuts about five percent of your time off."

"Shaving is almost like a catapult," Cornue agreed.

There were some impressive Harvard results, shaven or unshaven. Most notable is the performance of sophomore Greg Wriede, who was victorious in two events--the 400 yard individual medley and the 200 yard backstroke. Wriede, in fact, broke a 15-year-old Blodgett Pool record in the 400 IM with a time of 3:49.48. Not too bad for a boy without his Bic.

Junior Brian Younger also impressed qualifying for the NCAA meet in the 200-yard freestyle. The Harvard team of junior Mike Kiedel, sophomore Alex Kurmakov, Cornue and junior Eric Matuszak were victorious in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

All this success came with a significant handicap.

"Imagine a basketball league where everyone has to play with concrete shoes all season," Odell said about shaving. "Now there is one or two games during the year where a team stops training so hard and plays a game in lightweight shoes. This was Princeton's big game, their season's over."

Princeton defeated Harvard this weekend and won the Ivy League title. But, in the Crimson's mind, the Tigers have peaked; Harvard has different goals.

"Our championship season is in three or four weeks with Easterns at Princeton and the NCAA's in Minneapolis in March," said Cornue. "In the next two weeks we will be fine-tuning to go all out for Easterns. We already know we are the best team in the Ivy League. When we have 10 swimmers in the NCAA's and there are only two other swimmers from the rest of the Ivy League, I think it will be clear."

Clear, and clean shaven.