Gyorffy Sets Hungarian High Jump Record

Harvard high jumper Dora Gyorffy ’01-’02 achieved a longtime goal last Thursday when she cleared the previously elusive height of two meters at Hungarian Nationals in Nyiregyhaza. The personal-best jump moved Gyorffy into third place on the season’s world performance list and into the top spot on the all-time Hungarian performance list, eclipsing the previous national record of 1.98 meters.

The 2001 NCAA outdoor high jump champion Gyorffy found no serious competition in the collegiate ranks during her senior season at Harvard. Her national rivals could fare no better, as none cleared above 1.79 meters last week.

Although Gyorffy is done with her NCAA eligibilty, she must still complete one more semester at Harvard to earn her college degree, due to her sabbatical from school during the Sydney Olympics. But before returning to the classroom, Gyorffy will face a more formidable challenge—the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, which begin tonight in Edmonton.

Harvard will be represented at the world championships by both Gyorffy and two-time team captain Brenda Taylor ’01. Taylor, who placed third at U.S. Nationals in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles in June, ranks 16th on the world performance with a personal best of 55.46 seconds. The hurdles preliminaries begin on Sunday, while the high jump will be held at the tail end of the 10-day meet with preliminaries next Friday and the finals two days later.

Only two athletes in the world—Venelina Veneva of Bulgaria and Inha Babakova of the Ukraine—have jumped higher than Gyorffy this year, with season-bests of 2.04 and 2.03 meters, respectively. Olympic bronze medallist Kajsa Bergqvist of Sweden, who competed collegiately against Gyorffy at SMU, is the only other athlete to clear two meters this season.

Gyorffy has competed at several high-level meets in Europe this summer but has placed no higher than fourth.

Her best performance in a world championship meet came at the 2001 IAAF Indoor World Championships last March where she jumped 1.93 meters to place fifth.

Record-breaking performances have become commonplace for Gyorffy ever since she arrived at Harvard. Gyorffy shattered a Heptagonal meet record by jumping 1.91 meters at Indoor Heps during her freshman year and set an ECAC outdoor record with a 1.94-meter jump her sophomore season. At Indoor Heps the following winter, Gyorffy cleared an NCAA indoor record 1.97 meters, as Harvard won its first meet title in 10 years. Her personal outdoor best before last week’s performance was a 1.96-meter leap at Princeton in May.

After two years of falling short of NCAA titles against the likes of Bergqvist and U.S. Olympian Erin Aldrich of Texas, Gyorffy broke through for her first NCAA title with a 1.94-meter jump at the indoor championships in 2000. She closed out her Harvard track career by winning her only NCAA outdoor title with a performance of 1.91 meters at Eugene, Ore. this past June.

Gyorffy, who also competed in the triple jump at the conference level, won seven Heptagonal titles in the triple jump and eight titles in the high jump through the course of her Harvard career.