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
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.
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