On Saturday, the Harvard men’s heavyweight crew traded its former status as “giant” for that of “giant-killer,” shocking host Princeton in a six-second victory at Lake Carnegie.

The Crimson might have entered the race an underdog for the first time in over two years, but the varsity boat left little doubt that the Harvard crew of 2005 is every bit as competitive as the boats that won national championships in 2003 and 2004.

In last year’s race against Princeton, Harvard escaped with a 1.6-second win—its closest victory by several seconds.

That close finish was nowhere to be found on Saturday.

Princeton came into the race with a No. 1 ranking, though the Tigers had not defeated Harvard in a dual race since 2001. They caught no breaks on Saturday, either, as the No. 4 Crimson buried Princeton by two boat lengths. MIT came in a distant third.

“I don’t really put much faith in rankings,” captain five-seat Aaron Holzapfel said. “Rankings don’t win races.”

Initially, however, the Tigers lived up to their billing. Princeton jumped out of the start with a half-boat-length lead, holding four seats over the Crimson in the race’s opening strokes. But Harvard didn’t panic, and by the time the Crimson settled into its base cadence, Princeton saw its early advantage start to slip away.

“We wanted to start as hot as we could and keep the boats as level as we could,” sophomore three-seat Toby Medaris said.

Harvard’s steady base cadence brought the varsity boat near even with the Tigers after the race’s first 500 meters. For the first 250 meters of the second 500, both boats traded minimal leads, with neither establishing a definitive advantage.

At 750 meters down, the Crimson shattered the race’s early parity with a strong move into the 1,000-meter mark.

“After the one thousand, we kept applying pressure and methodically moved away,” Holzapfel said. “We really started to take the race over.”

“We did have a really strong move at the one thousand,” Medaris said. “That was our goal going into the race.”

Near the halfway point, Harvard pulled ahead of the MIT boat, which had stayed relatively close to the Crimson after the start. Princeton also fell slightly off the pace.

“As you move up on a boat,” Medaris said, “you become more confident and start to move ahead.”

Heading into the last 500 meters, Harvard maintained a solid advantage over Princeton. Though the Tigers’ attempts to even the spread with aggressive moves in the second 1,000 meters, the Crimson held a steady, aggressive pace heading into the final 500 meters.