CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The Yale women's track and field team enjoyed an electric day of competition on Saturday at the Harvard-Yale vs Oxford-Cambridge meet. Usually held every two years, alternating in location between the UK and the US, this represented the first HYOC competition in four years due to the lack of competition during the covid pandemic. In order to make up for missed time, 2023 will also see a second HYOC competition in July, this time in the UK, for which today's events served as qualification. In addition to going for glory in the overall events, athletes also had the intriguing subplot of aiming to come in first out of the Yale and Harvard representation in their event in order to book their ticket to the July event.
As such, motivation was high for the Bulldogs. And the team delivered, stepping up in the big moment with several fantastic performances boosting Yale and Harvard to a 13-4 team victory over their transatlantic rivals. One of those individual victories belonged to
Bharathi Subbiah, whose 5.45m leap secured her victory in the Long Jump. Not to be outdone, however, were teammates
Dominique Romain and
Caroline Glessing who sailed out to 5.54m and 5.33m respectively in the non-scoring competition. Subbiah also doubled back impressively in the Triple Jump, recording the fourth-furthest jump of the day with her 11.60m. Elsewhere in the jumps,
Abrianna Barrett and
Eileen Yang had earlier placed 3rd in the High Jump and Pole Vault respectively, recording season's best performances of 1.60m and 3.60m. The Bulldogs also displayed remarkable strength in depth in the throwing events, with the duo of
Isabella Bergloff and
Maria Leskovec competing in no less than three events each. The two of them both threw in the Discus Throw, Hammer Throw and Shot Put, before Leskovec placed 3rd in the Javelin in her fourth event of the day.
On the track, the day had begun promisingly for Yale with
Kyra Pretre finishing 2nd in her 3000m steeplechase debut in a time of 11:03.52, ahead of teammate and training partner
Sophia Karperos in 11:25.02. The Bulldogs saw further success in the middle distance events, with
Carmel Fitzgibbon running a remarkable 800m-1500m double in which she placed first over the shorter event and second over the longer one. Her 2:10.63 and 4:26.66 clockings both represented collegiate PRs and the fastest times run by a Yale athlete so far this year. Captain
Sam Friborg had also battled in the 1500m, longer than her favored 800m distance, on her way to a 4:32.01 fourth place finish. Later on, in the longest track race of the day,
Claire Archer soared to a collegiate PR of 16:35.86 to place 5th, ahead of teammate
Kathryn Rodrigues in 7th in a PR of 17:06.18.
The Bulldogs also displayed impressive strength in depth over the shorter sprinting events. In the 100m,
Casia Provencal, Aliya Boshnak and
Romain were all within 0.06 of each other as they placed 3rd-4th-5th in times of 12.37, 12.42 and 12.43 respectively. Several athletes doubled over both the 200m and 400m, with
Sydney McCord running 25.62 and 58.16 and
Ella Mainwaring-Foster running 25.67 and 57.71 over the two events.
Molly Harding's 56.64 in the 400m, though, proved to be the second fastest time of the day. Finally, towards the end of the day, Yale saw its second individual victor of the day, as
Peyton Parker glided her way to a phenomenal new PR of 1:04.87 to win the 400m hurdles.
Yale rounded out the day with a mixed 1600m relay in a combined team alongside Harvard, which the team won convincingly from the British opponents. Harding's 400m leg proved decisive as she put the team in a strong position on the first leg.
Full results from today's competition can be found
here.
