Christensen Hits New Heights at NCAAs

For Harvard athletes, it’s time to shake off the winter doldrums and get fired up for spring. The track and field squad is enjoying a three-week hiatus following the Indoor Heptagonal Championships—the end of the winter season—to prepare for next weekend’s spring season kickoff at the Texas Southern Relays. But junior high jumper Becky Christensen is finding out the hard way that there’s no rest for the weary.

Last Friday, the Texas native competed in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships and brought home a fourth-place finish and her first indoor All-American accolades after clearing a 1.83m bar, matching her career best jump.

“She went in there as the last person on the list and came out fourth,” said Harvard assistant coach and high jump coach Will Thomas. “She was the underdog...and she beat a lot of competitors.”

Christensen’s prior 1.83m clearance was last year against Yale in the outdoor season, which culminated with her tenth-place finish at the outdoor Nationals and an All-American. But Christensen’s road to 1.83m this time didn’t come easily.

According to Thomas, Christensen has been plagued by soreness in her take-off foot since the Heptagonals.

“We have been working on keeping things pointed, staying off that foot,” Thomas said.

When the bar was raised to 1.80m Friday, it looked like Christensen was done.

“The first two jumps at 1.80, they weren’t her best jumps,” Thomas said. “But I think she said it best when she said, ‘There’s no way I’m coming down to Arkansas to compete at Nationals and not clear a bar I know I can clear.’”

On her third attempt at 1.80m, Christensen overcame the bar with what Thomas described as a “monster jump.” Christensen then had to clear a height she’s only managed once with the Crimson: 1.83m. On her first go, she narrowly surpassed the bar.

“I actually nicked the bar on that jump,” Christensen said. “But it stayed on.”

“The high jump gods were on her side on that jump,” Thomas added.

Now with the winter season behind her—and All-American honors to boot—what does Christensen have planned with the spring season so rapidly approaching?

“I’m probably going to take a short break before I compete in the spring season, give my body a break,” she said.

With the Texas Southern Relays and the Victor Lopez Bayou Classic next week, Christensen indicated that she will likely sit out one of the meets.

“The collegiate indoor and outdoor season is so long that if you don’t work in some downtime between season, things get really stale,” Thomas said.

But Christensen realizes that to stay at the top, she can’t rest for too long.

“She’s basically just going to lift this week,” Thomas said. “She’s adamant about getting her regional qualifier out of the way.”

Thomas noted that Christensen might start with a 1.75m jump at the Texas Southern Relays to be qualified for Regionals.

In the meantime, she can rest easy. After Friday’s historic jump, Christensen has moved into an elite class of Harvard high jumpers—including Dora Gyorffy ’01 and Kart Siilats ’02—to be named All-Americans in the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Now she can shake off the winter chills, rest her foot, and look to improving on Friday’s success in the spring season to come.

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.