Harvard’s Graham Blanks, a U.S. Olympian in the 5000m and two-time NCAA cross country champion, has decided to forego the remainder of his NCAA eligibility and turn professional by signing a sponsorship with New Balance. Blanks was also one of the school’s first NIL signings last December.

The news comes less than two days after he ran 12:59.89 for a personal best by nearly four seconds at the BU Colyear-Danville Invitational, the second-fastest indoor 5000m by a collegian and the qualifying standard for the 2025 World Championships.

Instead of turning professional following his ninth-place finish in the 5000m final at the Paris Olympics, Blanks decided to return for one more cross country season with the Crimson. In 2023, he went undefeated in all five cross country races and went three-for-four in 2024 with the only blemish being a second place run at the Pre-Nationals in October. The United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association named him the National Athlete of The Year for the second year.

“I just wanted to come back and do [cross country] one more time – selfishly,” Blanks says. “I came here to run on a team and I came here to run for Harvard. I love the cross country aspect of it ever since my first year. I would’ve been really sad if I was still going to school here and I wasn’t able to participate in the season. I would say I got everything out of that season I wanted along with some good individual results.”

Blanks plans to remain with coach Alex Gibby, who recruited him out of Athens Academy in Georgia in 2019 and started coaching him the following year before he finally raced for the Crimson in 2021. He has one more semester of school to finish off his degrees in economics and philosophy. Hours before his final collegiate race, he submitted a rough draft of his thesis on pedestrian infrastructure for the economics department.

He will still be based in Boston and living in the dorms but will incorporate altitude training stints as a professional. He spent part of 2020 training in Flagstaff, AZ after graduating high school and saw major benefits when he went from a 9:04.92 3200m runner to a 13:27.39 for 5000m in 2021. This summer, he was the only male distance runner on the U.S. Olympic team who did not spend their build-up to the U.S. Olympic Trials at altitude. Between the Trials and the Games, he spent some time in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

“I’ve seen very massive jumps after using altitude – granted that was earlier on in my college career when I was less developed so some of those jumps were bound to happen – but the prospect of being able to go back to altitude and get those jumps again is definitely enticing, exciting and something I plan on doing,” Blanks said.

Following his NCAA cross country victory, Blanks opted to capitalize upon his fitness to target the 2025 World Championship 5000m qualifying standard of 13:01.00 in the first Boston University race of the indoor season in December..

Harvard is in its reading period, a week for students to work on assignments and prepare for final exams, so Blanks spent much of his afternoon doing homework while his phone buzzed with notifications of people running fast times less than two miles away. Blanks didn’t watch the races but squeezed in a few games of Fortnite with teammate Shane Brosnan and former training partner Acer Iverson.

“Honestly, I haven’t gotten too emotional about anything because I just feel like it’s time,” Blanks says. “It’s time to move on to bigger adventures.”

Once at the BU Track and Tennis Center, he took to the track against four of the top ten men from the XC championships in Madison just two weeks before and found his place behind pacer Anthony Camerieri, who did much of the work for the first two miles of the race. With eight laps to go, Camerieri dropped out and Blanks pressed forward with a surge that delighted the fans in attendance wanting to see a sub-13:00 performance.

“Talking back with Gibby about the race, I think I did make a little bit of a mistake,” Blanks says. “I was still in my cross country mindset and I could hear a couple of people on my shoulder. It was Brian Musau and Liam Murphy. Me, as a competitor, I threw a pretty hard surge when the pacer stepped off. I started going a little too hard. I was doing that for the race and wanted to win. That came back to bite me a little bit because I was hurting a lot the last bit.”