Athlete of the Week: Kart Siilats '03

Like so many other Harvard athletes before her, sophomore high jumper Kart Siilats rose to the occasion with the biggest prize of the season on the line.

On Friday afternoon in Arkansas, Siilats cleared a height of 1.85 meters to become Harvard's second NCAA high jump champion in as many years.

With the next five athletes below her all bowing out at the eventual winning height, it was the closest high jump competition in years. But Siilats proved herself more capable of handling the pressure of the high-stakes meet than any of her competitors.

On two of the progressive heights up to the 1.83-meter bar, Siilats missed on her first two attempts. But each time, despite facing possible early elimination, Siilats cleared her head of her past mistakes and advanced on her third try.

She also missed on her first attempt at 1.83 meters, but nailed it on her second try. Still, those previous misses left her in sixth place as the bar was raised to 1.85 meters.

Siilats had not jumped that high since her Harvard debut in December, when she cleared 1.84 meters to make her the second-best jumper in school history.

For months, through the Brown-Cornell meet, the Millrose Games, the H-Y-P meet, and the Heptagonal Championships, she had been unable to clear that height again.

So when Siilats failed to clear in her first two tries, and her five other competitors failed likewise, another Crimson title in the high jump seemed to be a longshot.

But then, in the most pressure-filled jump of the season, Siilats made the best jump of her Harvard career, surpassing that bar set at 1.85 meters. When the rest of the competition all came up short, the NCAA title was hers.

Since the high jump was the first event of the NCAA competition, the Harvard women's track team--for the next few hours at least--would be ranked No. 1 in the nation on the meet scoreboard.

With Siilats's victory, Harvard now has two national high jump champions. Senior Dora Gyorffy placed fifth in the IAAF World Championships at Lisbon with a height of 1.93 meters on the same day. Gyorffy was elated to hear of Siilats's victory.

"Congratulations to Kart--I am really happy that she won," Gyorffy wrote in an e-mail message.

Now that the indoor track season is over, the outdoor track season will soon begin, and Harvard will be seeking to upend Brown and reclaim its first Outdoor Heptagonal title in eleven years.

Inspired by Siilats's gutsy, high-pressure performance last weekend, Harvard just might surpass Brown on the scoreboard and reach its own unmatched heights.