With the blink of an eye, junior Kieran Tuntivate raced past the finish line, inching out the Tigers’ Conor Lundy for a first-place finish at the Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championship. The annual Ivy League Championships took place at Princeton’s West Windsor Fields on Oct. 27. With gray skies and a recent rainstorm leaving the course muddy and perilous for all the runners, the Ancient Eight nevertheless had its teams line up for the momentous race.

With of time of 24:30.2 in the 8,000 meter race and an average mile pace of 4:55.7, Tuntivate became the first men’s champion since Maksim Korolev ’14 won in 2013. In addition to his spectacular finish, sophomore Hugo Milner also found himself in the top three finishers with a time of 24:32.3, slotting himself within a pack of four Princeton runners.

After taking a season off last year and travelling to Thailand to both train and compete, Tuntivate returned this season ready to help Harvard break past its competition. As a freshman, he logged times of 25:38, 26:04, and 27:10.4, the latter of which placed him 77th in the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships in 2015. His sophomore season, Tuntivate placed 18th at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, running a time of 24:16.8. Overall, his best finish of the season was at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet with a 10th-place finish, and his fastest time of came at the Paul Short Meet where he ran an astounding 24:13.3.

This year, Tuntivate led Harvard to a second place finish in the Ivy League Heptagonal Championship, the best finish the men's team has seen since 1976. With the NCAA Northeast Regional and National Championship meets coming on Nov. 9 and 17, Harvard should feel confident, yet with room to improve.