Two of Harvard's most decorated athletes finished better than expected but still fell well short of earning a trip to the Olympic games at the track and field Olympic trials in Sacramento last weekend.

Brenda Taylor '01 and Chris Clever '01 didn't earn one of the prized three tickets to Sydney, although both placed above the finishes their pre-trial performance lists had predicted.

Clever placed 25th out of 37 competitors in the men's javelin preliminaries on Monday. With only the top 12 athletes making it to the finals, Clever's throw of 65.76 meters fell short of the 69.12-meter cutoff.

Clever is the two-time defending javelin champion at the Heptagonals, the Crimson's championship meet. He qualified for the Olympic trials in the 1999 Heps with a school record throw of 69.64 meters. His current personal record of 69.98 meters was the 33rd-best throw in the country this year going into the trials.

In the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, Taylor had no difficulty stepping up her performance to a higher level. Her time of 56.64 seconds in Saturday night's preliminaries was 0.61 faster than her previous personal best.

Despite the top-notch effort, Taylor was only fourth out of the six athletes in her heat. After running in the first heat, Taylor had to wait to see if she would move on, as only the top two in each heat and the next six fastest times earned berths in the semifinals. When all five heats were finished, her time turned out to be the eleventh-fastest overall, securing her a spot in the next day's semifinals.

In her Sunday afternoon semifinal run, which was televised nationally on NBC, Taylor needed to place in the top four out of eight to move on to the final. Taylor had to improve her previous time by an entire second to advance.

Coming into the final straightaway of the heat, the top four hurdlers managed to pull away from the rest of the pack, leaving Taylor out of the running. After the final hurdle, Taylor managed to outrun two of the other hurdlers lagging behind. That final effort earned her sixth place in the heat, with a time of 57.85 seconds.