Harris and Stramandi excel at World University Games

Last Spring, Princeton's men's track team and the women's swimming and diving squad obtained considerable success in both the Ivy League as well as NCAA's. Senior high jumper Tora Harris and platform diver Danielle Stramandi continued their respective teams' winning ways this summer as they competed at the World University Games in Beijing.

In his competition that ended Aug. 29, Harris showed why he is thought to be the best high jumper in Princeton history. He finished third overall with a clearance of 7 feet, 5 inches, behind only Alexei Krqvtson of Russia and Henadzi Maroz of Belarus.

"Coming into the competition, I looked at the start list and there were four or six guys who had personal records that were close to mine or better," Harris said. "I looked at it and saw how recent those performances were, and felt like I had a pretty good chance to get a medal. I decided it would be a classic battle for the top."

The competition was broken down into a preliminary round of 22 and then a final round. To qualify for the finals, the athletes had to be among the top 12 of the prelims. As the competitors were warming up, however, Harris felt a sharp pain in his foot.

"I was doing my warm-ups. I ran across the high jump pit and found a nail in the bottom of my shoe," Harris said. "The officials removed it, but from there on my approach was really off and I didn't jump well at all in the prelims."

Indeed, Harris jumped very poorly compared to what he is used to and tied for the last spot to qualify for the finals.

"That evening after the competition, I saw the tape and made the correction to my approach," Harris said. "After that, I was confident coming into the [finals] and felt I would do fine. I was going to make the best of it and whatever happens, happens. I just kept on clearing the hurdles and ended up in third."

While Harris was busy clearing the bar, Stramandi was hitting dive after dive of the semifinal round, qualifying in the ninth position going into the finals on Aug. 27.

Leading up to her final dive, Stramandi was in position to finish among the top 8 divers, not bad considering the unusually strong competition.

Her final plunge, however, did not go as she would have hoped, and she dropped back to 12th in the competition.

More than the competition, though, Harris and Stramandi were able to partake in the other cultures and experiences that are so important to the games.

"I hung out some with some of the Russian guys. They didn't speak any English, but somehow we communicated," Harris said. "It didn't matter, though. We were just friends."

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He also explained that the fans in China are simultaneously more tame and more loyal than their American counterparts.

"For the most part, there were just a lot of people cheering for the Chinese athletes. They know a good performance and will cheer for it," Harris said. "In China, they're more organized as far as where they cheer. There's a sense of national pride.

"There weren't many Americans to cheer for us, but it was a pretty exciting experience. China is a very different place from the U.S."