Track's Elite Prepare for IC4As, ECACs

Senior Dora Gyorffy is hoping to close out her outstanding Harvard career on a high note.

Two meters high, to be exact.

“My goal is to break the collegiate high jump record, which is 1.98 [meters], and the Hungarian high jump record, which is also 1.98,” Gyorffy said. “My goal is two meters.”

Gyorffy is well on her way to reaching that goal. Last Saturday at the Princeton Invitational, she set a new outdoor personal record with a jump of 1.96 meters.

It was the second-best jump in the world this season. The only athletes to reach such heights this year are American Amy Acuff, who also cleared 1.96 meters in Osaka, Japan last Saturday, and Russian Hestrie Storbeck-Cloete, who cleared 1.97 meters in March.

“I was tired from papers and studying for exams that weekend, so I was very excited to jump a [personal record],” Gyorffy said.

The best jump, indoor and outdoor, of Gyorffy’s career came at the Indoor Heptagonal Championships last year, when she tied an NCAA indoor record with a winning jump of 1.97 meters.

Gyorffy will have two more opportunities to break or match Acuff’s NCAA outdoor record. Her first chance will be Sunday morning at the 125th IC4A and 18th ECAC Women’s Championships hosted by Princeton this weekend.

For Gyorffy, women’s track co-captain Brenda Taylor, and freshman Alasdair McLean-Foreman, it will be their third consecutive weekend at the Tigers’ Weaver Track Stadium, which also hosted Outdoor Heptagonals and the Princeton Invitational.

Gyorffy has no close competition at ECACs and should win with ease. In terms of breaking records this weekend, however, Gyorffy does not have the highest expectations for herself.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it this weekend, because I’ll still be tired from exams and papers,” Gyorffy said.

But schoolwork didn’t stop Gyorffy at ECACs two years ago, when she jumped a meet-record 1.94 meters, which was her best outdoor height until last week.

Gyorffy’s final collegiate competition will be on June 2 at the NCAA Outdoor Track Championships in Oregon. Although she has yet to win an NCAA Outdoor title in her career, Gyorffy is the heavy favorite this season. The next-best jump in the nation, from Jeana Bingham of BYU, is over a tenth of a meter lower than Gyorffy’s personal best.

“The second girl is at 1.85 meters, so it would be pretty ugly if I lost,” Gyorffy said.

If the high jump competition sticks to form, Harvard would be in the unprecedented situation of having two different national high jump champions in the same calendar year. Sophomore Kart Siilats won the NCAA Indoor title in March, while Gyorffy was competing at the IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Taylor and men’s co-captain Chris Clever are also poised to win their events this weekend.

Taylor is favored to win her third consecutive ECAC title in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles. She has not run the event since winning the Penn Relays on April 26 in 56.11 seconds, the best time run by in American this year, and good for seventh on the world performance list.

Taylor ran the 100-meter high hurdles at the Princeton Invitational last weekend and finished in 13.60 seconds, just off the pace of the personal-best, meet-record time of 13.56 seconds she ran at Outdoor Heps two weeks ago, which helped her earn Athlete of the Meet Honors. She is also a provisional NCAA qualifier in the 100 hurdles, in which she is ranked 44th in the nation. Nevertheless, her competitive focus at the national level is entirely on the 400 hurdles.

Taylor will begin her bid for her first NCAA title on May 30. The finals for the 400 hurdles are on June 1.

Clever—presently ranked fifth on this year’s national performance list in the javelin—broke the Heptagonal meet record two weekends ago with a throw of 74.06 meters. Clever will now set his sights on the IC4A title and the meet record of 72.34 meters, currently held by Rob Manning of Princeton, who was once Clever’s top Ivy rival.

Clever will throw for his NCAA title on the evening of May 30th.

Five other Crimson athletes will be competing at Princeton this weekend. Several others qualified for the meet, but chose not to compete because of exams.

None of those five competing athletes have qualified for NCAAs, although sophomore jumper Helena Ronner and McLean-Foreman are the closest.

Ronner’s outdoor performance peaked at 12.46 meters at Heps. She would have to improve significantly to qualify for the NCAAs and win an ECAC title. Gyorffy, who jumped 13.05 meters, is also ranked 17th in the nation in the triple jump, although she will not be competing in the event.

McLean-Foreman posted a personal-best time of 1:49.84 in the 800-meter run at the Princeton Invitational last weekend. He won the event at Indoor Heps in February. If he can improve on his performance from last weekend, he could take home the ECAC title. He would have to improve by well over a second to make NCAAs.

Sophomore Amanda Shanklin, who placed fourth in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles at Heps two weekends ago, has the potential to win the race between everyone who will be left in the dust by Taylor this weekend, and give the Crimson a one-two finish in the event.

In addition to Clever, two other throwers will be making the trip to Princeton. Co-captain John Kraay will look to close out his career in the shot put and the discus at his best. He placed second and third, respectively, at the two events at Heps.

On the women’s side, promising freshman Alex Petrone will compete in the javelin. She was been improving steadily all season, peaking with a throw of 40.58 meters at the April 28 Boston College dual meet. She placed fifth at Heps and could potentially finish in the top five this weekend.