Athletics: Kiwi duo reach 1500m final

Adrian Blincoe and Nick Willis will both feature in the 1500m final. Photo / Getty Images

Nick Willis and Adrian Blincoe both cruised into tonight's 1500m final.

With the first four automatically qualifying, Willis, in the later heat, strolled into fourth while barely raising a sweat.

Blincoe finished fifth, but his heat was considerably faster, allowing him to qualify as one of the next four fastest.

"It was pretty solid. I ran hard and felt good, it was just that last 100m that it got a little tough," Blincoe said.

Blincoe struggled in the 5000m on Wednesday after leaving it too late to acclimatise to the heat.

"The heat's actually dropped the last couple of days. It would have been nicer to run a 5k in this weather."

While Blincoe was always confident his time of 3m 41.54s would be good enough to qualify, Willis took that equation out of play by nabbing one of the automatic spots. It all looked remarkably easy for the Hutt Valley native who clocked 3m 42.47s.

"I was just trying to run the smoothest race possible, I wasn't really worried about the [three] guys up front," Willis said.

"I didn't want to get too excited and I'll give it everything [tonight]."