Female Individual Performance of the Year, Runner-Up: Martina Salander at Indoor NCAA Championships, Women's Track and Field

The Harvard track and field team had a number of record-breaking performances in 2013, but none were as impressive as freshman Martina Salander’s showing at the Indoor NCAA Championships.

Salander set a new Ivy League record in the pentathlon with a monstrous 4209 point total, which earned her fifth place at the meet and All-American honors. She first broke the conference record earlier in the season at the Texas A&M Mondo Challenge by recording 4094 points.

The rookie’s performance at nationals was a balanced effort, as she turned in impressive marks in each of the five components of the pentathlon.

In the 60-meter hurdles, Salander ran a blistering time of 8.61 seconds, which is the fourth-fastest time in school history. She went on to achieve the sixth-best shot put throw and the fifth-farthest long jump in Crimson history en route to her top-five finish.

Going into the third component of the event, the shot put, Salander found herself in 12th place despite a relatively strong performance in the hurdles and a decent showing in the high jump. With a personal-best heave that was the top mark in the competition, the rookie catapulted herself into third place with only the long jump and 800-meter run remaining.

“Especially with how the high jump went, it was really important for me to score a lot of points [in the shot put],” Salander said.

Though she had not yet eclipsed 14 meters in the event, the rookie recorded a mark of 14.23 meters, while no other competitor threw farther than 12.55 meters.

She went on to foul on the first two of her three attempts in the long jump before soaring 5.85 meters on her final try.

“The biggest moment was when she decided, ‘I’m going to go after it, or I’m going to fold it,’ and that was during the long jump.” Tolbert said. “She was aggressive and had a pretty good jump, and that was what kept her in the mix.”

Salander covered the 800-meter run, the final leg of the pentathlon, in 2:19.36 to lock up fifth place in the competition.

“She came in a fairly accomplished athlete already, and with the improvement that she’s made in only her freshman year, I think we’ve only been scratching the surface.” Crimson coach Jason Saretsky said. “There’s definitely a tremendous upside to the future of her career at Harvard.”

—Staff writer Dominic Martinez can be reached at dmartinez@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @dominicmTHC.