Siilats Wins NCAA High Jump Title, Gyorffy Places Fifth at Worlds

The Harvard women's track team has now has two national high jump champions.

Sophomore Kart Siilats, a first-year transfer student from Estonia, captured the NCAA high jump title with a season best 1.85-meter jump at Arkansas on Friday afternoon.

Senior Dora Gyorffy--who still holds a share of the NCAA indoor record of 1.97 meters in the high jump--chose to compete at the biannual IAAF World Indoor Championships in Lisbon for her native Hungary rather than defend her NCAA title. On Friday in Lisbon, she placed fifth with a leap of 1.93 meters.

National Champion

With one jump meaning the difference between sixth place and the nationasl title, Siilats cleared her best height of the season.

Siilats did not have the smoothest ride to the top of the competition. As in all high jump competitions, the failure to clear any given increment of the bar three times means elimination. Siilats twice needed a third try just to make it to the 1.83-meter height.

Six athletes remained in the competition as the bar was raised to 1.85 meters. If no one had cleared, Siilats would have earned sixth place due to her previous misses.

Each of the six athletes failed on her first two attempts, and Akron's Mary Varga, who had been perfect before the latest increment, was in good shape to take home the national title.

But for the third time of the afternoon, Siilats staved off elimination and cleared the bar to advance in the competition. Once the other competitors failed to come through on their final try, the NCAA high jump title again belonged to Harvard.

"Kart is definitely a high-stakes performer," said Harvard co-captain Brenda Taylor. "She's been in these competitions before, and she knew what she had to do to compete against the best."

Siilats's performance was especially clutch since she had not cleared such heights since her Crimson debut on Dec. 2 against Boston College, when she leapt 1.84 meters--the best jump in school history outside of Gyorffy. That height would keep Siilats on top of the national performance lists for nearly two months before Gyorffy's return to collegiate competition following the Sydney Olympics.

Siilats' winning height at NCAAs was the lowest in the recent history of the event. Gyorffy and senior Erin Aldrich of Texas had both jumped in the 1.90's to win the title in the past two years. Aldrich, also a Sydney Olympian, had struggled all year and chose not to compete this season.

Siilats had built an impressive resume in the high jump before stepping foot on the Harvard campus. She was the Estonian national champion and record holder, boasting a personal best of 1.89 meters which she set at the 1999 World Championships in Seville.

With Gyorffy and Siilats, the Crimson has the beginning of a high jump dynasty. Gyorffy helped convince Siilats to transfer to Harvard.

"I was hosting [Siilats] when she visited," Gyorffy said last month. "She liked Harvard, and my example showed her that she could do well in track, and a good degree [was] very important to her."

Had Gyorffy chosen to compete at NCAAs, she and Siilats could easily have finished one-two in the meet.

World Beater

At Lisbon on Friday, Gyorffy was one of four athletes to nail her first four heights of 1.80, 1.85, 1.90, and 1.93 meters. But she could not advance any further as she thrice failed to clear at 1.96 meters--a height she had successfully reached in February.

"I feel I could have jumped higher than 1.93, but unforunately the track was built in such a way that we had to run off a ramp for the approach, which sort of confused me," Gyorffy said. "Others had to deal with the same problem, but they had more experience than I did. However, I feel I did the best I could under the circumstances."

Two jumpers who had missed at previous heights, the United States' Amy Acuff and former SMU standout Kajsa Bergqvist, surpassed the 1.96-meter bar to leave Gyorffy tied for fifth place. Bergqvist went on to clear two more heights to win the competition at 2.00 meters, while Acuff placed fourth.

Although the 1.93-meter height was not quite Gyorffy's best overall performance, it was her best showing in a major international competition. In the 1997 Indoor World Championships in Paris, her best height was 1.80 meters. At the 2000 Sydney Games, she peaked at 1.89 meters.

"I was very happy with the result," Gyorffy said. "This is the first time that I got top six in a major championship. I feel I took a big step toward becoming a top athlete at a professional level. I am also confident that over the summer I can do even better and finish even higher at major meets."