Athletics: Dale left out in the cold

Marathon man Dale Warrender isn't going "to cry over spilt milk", despite a qualification process that has seen his non-selection for the world champs despite posting a time inside the IAAF standard.

Five marathoners have been named in the initial 10-man team for the athletics world champs in Helsinki in August but Warrender, who ran a creditable 33rd out of 102 starters at the Athens Olympics, isn't among them.

Warrender won last year's Auckland marathon in 2h:16:47, well under the IAAF qualifying time, but the course is not IAAF credited.

Ironically the course is far more challenging than the ultra-fast London marathon, where Scott Winton qualified with a time slower than that of Warrender's.

"It's [London] a bullet-proof course. I would have hoped to break the standard by minutes if I'd raced there."

Following his Auckland result, Warrender said he wasn't going to chase another fast time to qualify for Helsinki. He hoped IAAF course measurers, at the instigation of Athletics New Zealand, would clear the Auckland course.

"They could have tried a bit harder," Warrender said.

Instead, Warrender will tackle the Gold Coast marathon in winter to show the Commonwealth Games selectors he is serious about the Melbourne Games in 2006.
Athletics New Zealand acting performance director Graham Tattersall said promising 1500m talent Nick Willis was another almost automatic selection provided he proved he "had two legs".

Willis struggled with injury after Athens but has sorted them out. "He's very talented," Tatersall said.

Initial NZ team: Craig Barrett, 50km walk; Beatrice Faumuina, discus; Melina Hamilton, pole vault; Liza Hunter-Galvan, marathon; Rebecca Moore, marathon; Kimberley Smith, 5000m; Kay Ulrich, marathon; Valerie Vili, shot put; Scott Winton, marathon; Jonathan Wyatt, marathon.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY