Ramsden Races to Rewrite the Record Books

By AARON B. SHUCHMAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Although junior Maia Ramsden has only competed on the Harvard track and field and cross country teams for two seasons, her name is quickly taking up a lot of real estate in the Harvard Athletics record book.

After a strong sophomore campaign in 2021-22, Ramsden emerged as an anchor of the women’s track and field program in 2022-23, captaining the team to a historic season that included victories at the Ivy League Cross Country, Indoor, and Outdoor championships.

A native of New Zealand, Ramsden has been a star on the track even since her years before Harvard. Ramsden won the U20 New Zealand National Championship in the 1500 m and the 800 m, and she earned New Zealand National Silver honors in the 800 m at the U18 levels.

Ramsden was also a decorated performer during her time at the International Community School of Addis Ababa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She holds the

International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa (ISSEA) records in the 400 m, 800 m, and 1500 m, and she was twice honored as an ISSEA All-Star.

Ramsden kicked off her campaign with a cross country victory in the 5000 m race at the Sept. 10th HYP meet against Yale and Princeton. In late September, she finished seventh at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree in the 6000 m with a time of 20:32.7, and took home another seventh place ranking at the Nuttycombe Invite in Wisconsin two weeks later, improving to a time of 20:04.5.

At the Ivy League Championships on Oct. 28th, Ramsden won the Ivy League individual title in the 6000 m with a time

Ramsden hit the ground running at the start of the track and field indoor season, setting a school record in the 3000 m with a time of 8:54 at the HBCU and Ivy Challenge. Ramsden picked up her record-setting ways soon after winter break, setting a program record in the 1000m at the HYP Meet in late January.

“I’ve never run the 1000 meters before, so I knew I was going to PR since I didn’t have any other time,” she noted. “I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen — it was a really pleasant surprise, I’d say.” tire NCAA with her historic time. While she could not match her school record at the Ivy League Indoor Championships in late February, Ramsden won two gold medals with firstplace finishes in the mile and 1000 m. Her stellar performance earned her the Ivy League Most Valuable Track Athlete award. of 20:42.4, leading the Crimson to a league title. Less than two weeks later, Ramsden secured a spot in the NCAA Championship meet with another 6000 m win at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships, this time posting a 20:20.6 result, but she saved her best time of the season for the mid-November national championships, finishing in 11th with a time of 19:52.3 to cap off a stellar fall cross country season.

Despite another strong performance, the junior noted that there were lessons to be learned in Harvard’s team defeat to Princeton.

After posting a season-best time in cross country’s biggest meet of the year,

“Our coach is pretty keen on us peaking at the right time,” Ramsden said. “I think that at first that means on the scoreboard — Princeton beats us, but in the long term, it’s better because we’re learning to adapt to new races.”

The next weekend, Ramsden broke a 43-year-old school record in the mile run in a time of 4:30.19 at Boston University’s Scarlet and White meet. Ramsden finished first in the entire collegiate field in the race and rose to second place in the en-

After finishing the Ivy League season with a dominant performance, Ramsden earned First-Team All-American honors in two events at the NCAA Indoor Championships in N.M. in mid-March. In her first event of the meet, Ramsden finished fifth in the mile with a time of 4:36.54, and she followed up with a ninth-place finish in the 3000 m only hours later, securing a spot on the podium each time to complete a brilliant out-

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16.3 door season, one that saw the track and field team send its biggest group of athletes to the national championship in 17 years.

“I was incredibly proud of Maia,” said track and field head coach Jason Saretsky.

“She certainly is the epitome of a student athlete, pursuing academic and athletic excellence, and for her to have that recognition in front of her peers was just a testament to her hard work and how dedicated she is as a student athlete.”

With the outdoor season in full swing, Ramsden posted a dominant performance at the

126th biannual Harvard-Yale Oxford-Cambridge meet. After winning the 1500 m in 4:15.77, Ramsden dominated the 5000 m, setting a personal record of 16:08.27 and securing victory by a margin of 15 seconds. She posted another strong 1500 m time two weeks later to finish fourth at Wake Forest, taking second place in the Harvard record book and rising to 13th in the nation.

In the final Ivy League competition of the season, the captain defended her 2022 title in the 1500 m, winning by three seconds in a time of 4:12.54. She won the 5000 m title only five hours later, taking the lead in the final lap to earn the individual Most Outstanding Track Performer award. The women’s team won its sixth ever Ivy League title, and first since 2017, behind Ramsden’s dominance.

“I think that’s a lot different than last year, where I was just going to race with the field, sit on the leader, and kind of make it fast if we have to,” Ramsden said after the championship.

“This year we kind of had some goals for what the first half of the race should look like, and that was to go out pretty hard. I ended up going out a little too hard, but it worked out in the

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end.”

The junior captain has another chance to secure some national hardware at the upcoming NCAA Regionals and Indoor Championships in June, but regardless of the outcome, Ramsden’s consistent brilliance on the track has entrenched her place in the Harvard record books, and her leadership and teamwork has helped push the Crimson to a historic and unforgettable season.

“I think it’s a reflection of our program, the more qualifiers we can have at NCAA Regionals. So definitely trying to help and support and motivate as many people as we can this first weekend.” aaron.shuchman@thecrimson.com

By CALLUM J. DIAK CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

post an all-time record of 56-4. To put this in perspective, the legendary 1996 Chicago Bulls ended the season with a 72-10 record. If Tarek had his record extrapolated into a standard 82-game NBA season, he would clock an unfathomable 77-5 season, steamrolling the Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman power trio.

Yes, Tarek wins. Yes, Tarek makes the finals. But does he win in the finals? Yes. The Cairo, Egypt native has won four Potter Cups with the Crimson, and in finals play, Tarek has been a perfect 4-0 in his individual matches.

In Harvard’s biggest games this season — the Ivy League-clinching win over the University of Pennsylvania and the Potter Cup final against Trinity College — Harvard’s go-to-guy has delivered. In a regular season game outside of Ivy League competition, Tarek secured a win over Trinity College’s Mohammed Sharaf, three games to one. A month-and-a-half later, he then repeated this performance in an entirely different context to score an essential point that brought Harvard its fourth straight national squash title.

With a true championship mindset exemplified in his on-court grit and rigor, spectators watching Marwan Tarek compete are reminded that athletes do not ever play to lose. In both of the Trinity College matches this season, one with no stakes, the other with the highest stakes in college squash, Tarek maintained the same level of focus and precision to close out his opponent. In both instances, Tarek won the first game comfortably, and then proceeded to drop the second. Whether winning or losing, Tarek is always focused, composed. His ability to come off a lost game and string together two straight victories against an opponent as undeniably skilled as Trinity’s Sharaf is a true testament to Tarek’s unique talent as an athlete.

It is not that he is ever visually bothered. It is the opposite actually: it is generally difficult to tell what exactly the Crimson’s No. 1 is thinking when he is locked into a match. This makes Tarek exceptionally dangerous to an opponent. Maybe he is fazed by making an error and losing a point? Maybe he is so confident in his skill that he never feels the pressure of a single point? Regardless, an opponent that conceals his emotions until the very end, when he is able to drop his racquet and cheer to his fans is a terrifying adversary, especially when composure is just an additive to an already bursting kit of squash IQ and skillful shots.

The on-court persona of a silent killer, however, immediately dissipates after the 23-year-old economics concentrator leaves the confines of the squash court. Once his match ends, Tarek will jump quickly out through the plexiglass door in search of one of his teammates playing, so that he can cheer them on loudly. Tarek certainly holds himself in a way that reflects expertise and experience, which could be easily interpreted as unapproachability. But Tarek could be seen all season fully engaged in his mentor role, shouting motivation and conversing one-on-one with teammates about specific points of a game or opponent tendencies.

“When you’re on the court alone, you’re not actually alone. You have your guys there supporting you,” teammate Tate Harms elaborates on the importance of getting energy and advice from the team. And this is the true sign of a gifted athlete: a generational talent on the court who also uses his abilities to elevate the play of his teammates. After all, college squash is a team sport, and Tarek has led Harvard to the most successful four years of competition it possibly could have had.

The most notable deviation from his reserved style requires a look back once again to Harvard’s final game of the season against the Trinity College Bantam in the finals of the CSA National Championships. Tarek had won games one and three, dropping the second game. The bigger picture is that while the Crimson’s best player is on the court, the overall score of the matchup

43 102-0 is 4-3 in favor of Harvard.

The spectators and players alike begin to realize that Tarek could secure the fifth point for the Crimson and clinch the title with one more game victory over Sharaf. An already sizable crowd was locked in on the number-one ladder game; however, once the stakes were realized, every eye in the building fell onto the Egyptian national champion. Dancing around his opponent, Tarek, on surely tired legs, looks just as fresh as he did in the first game of the season. But now he wears the familiar look of a man hungry for another title.

Up two games to one, Tarek ran the score up rapidly on Sharaf, until match point, and champion point, were established. Tarek and Sharaf traded drives down the line on this crucial point, until Tarek switched the flow of the rally unexpectedly — slithering past Sharaf to deliver a high volley to the top of the wall. The high shot forced Sharaf to reach for a difficult spike shot that ultimately errored into the bottom runner.

With the bang of the ball on the metal, a collective breath slips from the mouths of the entire crowd. And then the Harvard team erupted into cheers. While his teammates celebrate outside of the court, jumping up and down and hugging. Marwan Tarek shakes his opponent’s hand, and then lets emotion take over. His hands rise up and rest on his head as he realizes what he has just accomplished: a fourth title for him and for the Crimson. And right on cue, the team floods through the plexiglass door, swarming their hero — their champion — jumping onto him and collectively collapsing onto the floor as one big pile.

In recognition of his exceptional season and overall career, this Crimson ace was awarded the Skillman Award by the CSA — the highest honor in collegiate squash for an individual athlete. A coalition of coaches determines the recipient of this award annually, and it is always an athlete who embodies college squash skill and sportsmanship. Nominees are judged for the Skillman on criteria surrounding six ar-

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eas: on-court poise and demeanor, skill level, and ability in squash, team play, contributions to college squash, leadership, and cooperation with players, coaches, and tournament officials. It is safe to say that Tarek excels in all fields. Tarek joins a very high company of Crimson Skillman Award winners, including last year’s recipient, Victor Crouin ’22, and former Professional Squash Association World No. 1, Ali Farag ’14. Tarek, who boasts one of the most successful college squash careers ever, will go down in history as a Harvard squash legend, and one of the best to step on the college squash circuit.

Looking now to his future in squash, the 2023 graduate shows plenty of promise, already participating in PSA competitions alongside former Crimson stars Crouin and Farag, who are both active professional squash players, with the latter recently claiming another PSA world championship title this month. The Harvard squash program has been very successful at springboarding its athletes into successful professional squash careers. With a talent and drive as special as his, Tarek will likely begin making noise professionally very soon. Until then, squash fans can reflect and revel in Marwan Tarek’s collegiate career and admire his fitting season finale that earns him the Male Athlete of the Year award for 2022-23.

callum.diak@thecrimson.com