Olympic profile: Nick Willis

EUGENE BINGHAM profiles a New Zealand middle-distance prospect


Last Friday, on a balmy night in Rome, the kid spied on the master.

Hicham El Guerrouj, king of middle distance, was warming up for another race.

From the corner of the track, 21-year-old New Zealander Nick Willis watched El Guerrouj spring and stride.

Willis has been a student of track and field as much as a practitioner for as long as he can remember. His first race was at age four on the grass in Lower Hutt. As a boy, he watched videos of the great races of the past, the duels of champions such as Coe, Ovett and Walker.

He took another opportunity to learn when in Rome. Someone once told him that if he got the chance, he should watch El Guerrouj warm up. Willis was not so interested in the Moroccan's drills; he scanned the master's face.

"You could see he was really relaxed." Cool and calculating, no sign of the calamity about to occur on the track.

Acutely aware this was his best chance of a time fast enough to qualify for the Olympics (he needed to clock less than 3m 36.20s), Willis sat in the back third of the field and tried to cruise. In the first lap, he was elbowed into the long-jump pit, but he recovered and by 800m, he was on target.

Out front, drama. As they closed in on the line, El Guerrouj's speed ebbed. He crossed the line in eighth position, dejection written over his gaunt face. One place behind, was Willis, elated.

Sport can crush and it can crown. In the same race, one place between them, two athletes could not have been going through more different emotions. The master so shaken, he contemplated pulling out of next month's Olympics.

The kid had booked his ticket to Athens, running 3m 32.68s, a personal best by 3.56s. It catapulted him up the list of all-time bests by New Zealanders, past names such as Rod Dixon and Peter O'Donoghue.

Willis celebrated as kids do with heroes by asking El Guerrouj to autograph his running spikes.

"It's a bit smudged," he said. "He was a little bit upset."

Those who have watched Willis since those first barefoot races have expected greatness.

His father, Richard, a geography lecturer at Victoria University, reveals his son ran in the Wellington championships "illegally" for three years. Children are not supposed to compete until they are seven, but Nick was insistent, beating older kids for titles.

From age four to 12, he enjoyed an El Guerrouj-like unbeaten reign and still holds many Wellington age-group sprint records. The shock of his life came when he started to lose to boys who hit puberty before him.

Two years ago, Willis won a scholarship to the United States at the University of Michigan and emerged as one of the best college athletes.

After watching Willis, Irish great Ray Flynn wrote to fellow Olympian Tony Rogers, the last New Zealander to make an Olympic 1500m final: "This kid has got a great set of wheels."

Rogers, ninth in the 1984 final won by Sebastian Coe, knew all about Willis. As performance manager for Athletics New Zealand, he hoped Michigan would drive Willis into Olympic contention.

Willis credits his coach, Ron Warhurst, and training partners including Nate Brannen and Kevin Sullivan.

But coaches take you so far. Willis is a compulsive trainer. On weekends, when the team head out on their endurance-building session, Willis tags on a few extra kilometres, not coming back until he has run 25-30km.

His favourite workout is "The Michigan", when the team run track intervals of a mile, 1200m, 800m and 400m, interspersed with 2km road loops.


Warhurst has helped Willis build his strength and speed with hill and acceleration sessions. But just as important to Willis are his surroundings at Michigan. Yes, there are girls, and one, in particular, Jessie Stewart, has taken his eye.

He belongs to a group called Athletes in Action, Christians who gather for Bible study and bowling.

Friends and family root Willis to the ground too. He is the youngest of three, trailing Stephen, 29 (himself a sub-four-minute miler), and sister Mieke, 25.

Aged four, he lost his mother to cancer before he got the chance to know her well. Dealing with that loss has been a crucial part of his development from boy to man.

Willis loves his dad and the way he brought up the three kids.

Undoubtedly, his upbringing means he is not afflicted with an overinflated sense of his greatness.

Back in Michigan, he reflected on his race in Rome. He was delighted to qualify for Athens, but it was humbling to finish ninth. Most of the athletes ahead of him expect to line up at the Games. To achieve his goal of making the final, Willis will have to beat some in the preliminary rounds.

Once he is in the final, who knows. Olympic finals are not drag races like on the European circuit. There are no pace-setters. The Olympic record stands at 3m 32.07s - just over half-a-second quicker than Willis' personal best.

Between his personal best and the Olympic record is Walker's national record, but Willis dismissed talk that he would make an attempt on it in one of his two races before Athens.

"It hasn't even crossed my mind. Times will come. Basically this is the start of my running career."

At his age, there is still plenty of time to become a master.

* North Shore 1500m runner Adrian Blincoe hopes to race twice more and post an A qualifying standard before the selectors' July 21 cut-off date.

Nick Willis:

Born: April 25, 1983, Wellington.

College: University of Michigan.

School: Hutt Valley High.

1500m best: 3m 32.68s.

Mile best: 3m 53.51s.

* Set the national under-20 mile record of 4m 01.32s aged 17.

* Became the youngest New Zealander to break the four-minute mile by running 3m 58.15s last year.

* Came fourth in the world junior championship 1500m final in 2002.