At the Ivy League outdoor Heptagonal Championships at Yale University last weekend, Kaitlin Whitehorn ’16 was everywhere. Running back and forth between the track and the high jump, she competed six times over the course of the weekend. After competing in the 100- and 200-meter preliminaries Saturday, she woke up Sunday with four events ahead of her: the 100- and 200-meter finals, the 4x100-meter relay and the high jump.
Whitehorn started the high jump at 11 a.m., competed for less than an hour before having to check out and run the 4x100-meter relay, finishing in second, and then returned to the high jump after the race was completed. Whitehorn cleared 1.78 meters to win her second Ivy League title in the high jump. She didn’t have time to celebrate, however, with the 100-meter dash in less than two hours. After winning the 100-meter dash over those with faster seed times, Whitehorn’s day still was not complete. The 200-meter dash loomed ahead less than an hour later.
In total, Whitehorn contributed 28 points to the team score and was named the Northeast Credit Union athlete of the week.
“When I’m high jumping I just try not think about anything else that isn’t high jumping,” Whitehorn said. “Trying to think about refocusing doesn’t help me refocus.”
To anyone who has heard of her success in the sprints this year — Ivy League champion in the 100-meter, Dartmouth record holder in the 60-meter dash and the 200-meter dash — it may come as a surprise that last year Whitehorn did not compete in sprinting events, but focused on the high jump instead.
“I like high jump more than running,” Whitehorn said. “I would say that high jump has more of a mental emphasis, not that running doesn’t, but if you raise the bar a centimeter it can mess with your mental game.”
Starting with sprinting in middle school, the high jump was where Whitehorn first realized that she could have a future in track. She joined track in seventh grade after being the fastest on the soccer field, following after her sister, who also ran and played soccer.
It wasn’t until sophomore year of high school that everything came together. During junior and senior year Whitehorn started competing at a high level in high jump and began to receive recruitment letters.
When Whitehorn arrived at Dartmouth last fall, she had to adjust to the Division I quality of the program. She said she learned the necessity of planning time for courses, practices and travel.
Whitehorn saw success freshman year competing as a high jumper, highlighted by an Ivy League indoor title. At an outdoor meet last spring, the coaches did not want anyone to compete in the high jump due to inclement weather, according to jumps coach Moose Akanno, so they decided to have Whitehorn try the 100-meter dash, opening up new doors.
“The way we train [for jumps] we do a lot of speed work anyway,” Akanno said. “So we just had to add in a little technical work.”
Whitehorn started adding sprinting races regularly this indoor season, competing in the 60-meter dash. The addition of the sprints to her high jump training was not too difficult, she said, but did increase her work, making practices longer and more frequent.
It did not take Whitehorn long to prove that she could compete as a sprinter, setting a new record in the 60-meter dash of 7.60 seconds indoors in early February at the Boston University Valentine Invitational, followed by a record in the 200-meter dash in the spring. But she solidified her high level of athletic ability at the Ivy League Championships this spring when she became the first Ivy League woman to win both the 100-meter dash and high jump titles, completing the feat in a single weekend.
Both Akanno and head women’s coach Sandra Ford-Centonze said they have yet to determine the extent of Whitehorn’s athletic capability.
“She is definitely a national-caliber athlete,” Ford-Centonze said. “She is capable of doing very well at NCAA regionals, and as she gets older and more mature, she will have a chance to make her mark and hopefully be on the podium.”
