Athletics: Willis finishes eighth in Zurich 1500m

9.00am

New Zealand Olympic hope Nick Willis finished eighth in the 1500m in Zurich this morning (NZT) as Kenyan Bernard Lagat powered home in a near world record time .

Willis' time of 3 minutes, 34.53 seconds was outside the 3:32.68 he ran in Rome in July to qualify for the Olympics, but on its own would still have been good enough to qualify him for Athens.

In this morning's race, after pacemakers set a blistering world record pace, Lagat and world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj, of Morocco, drew away from the pack.

Guerrouj led until 30m to run when Lagat sprinted past to finish in 3:27.40 with El Guerrouj just back in 3:27.64.

Lagat's time was the fastest in the world this year, but outside Guerrouj's world record time of 3min 26.00.00 set in 1998 in Rome.

- NZPA