Top Kiwi athlete Nick Willis has silenced his critics in emphatic fashion by breaking John Walker's 31-year-old national 3000-metre record.
Wanganui athletics expert Alec McNab said some people in the sport were saying Willis was getting too old and was past his prime, but those sentiments were put firmly to bed when the runner clocked 7:36.91 in finishing third on Tuesday morning at the latest IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
"As you can see," McNab said, "he is in prime condition in the lead-up to the Glasgow Commonwealth Games next month.
"Just last week he went within a whisker of breaking John Walker's mile record finishing just .75 of a second adrift - that's great form."
Yesterday Willis knocked 0.58 seconds off the mark set by Walker, recorded in London in September 1982 - a year before Willis was born.