Willis secures Athens mark with 3 min 32.68 in Rome

3 July 2004.

Nick Willis last evening moved into the top echelon of world 1500 metre runners when he set a personal best time of 3.32.68. This surpassed his personal best by 3.56 secs and enabled him to go under the "A" selection target for Athens by 3.52 secs. Willis now only has New Zealand's icon of 1500 metres John Walker ahead of him on the all time list of New Zealand performances. Walker's long standing national record set at Oslo in 1975 is 3mins 32.4 secs. Willis will have plenty of further opportunities to look at setting a new National record in the future but for now he can concentrate on his Athens preparation.

Willis placed ninth last evening just 0.04 secs behind the world leading 1500 metre exponent for almost the last decade Hicham El Guerrouji of Morocco who was eighth. The Rome race which was part of the IAAF Golden League Series had ten athletes run under 3 mins 33 secs. Bahrain's Rachid Ramzi the World Indoor 800m silver medallist, who had only last week in Alger set the world season's leading time won the event. The former Moroccan finished winning in 3:30.25 ahead Bernard
Lagat [Kenya] in 3:30.81 and Mehdi Baala [France] last years World Silver medalist hung on for third 3:31.25 after passing El Guerrouji at the bell.

All eyes will focus overnight now to Adrian Blincoe to see if he can secure his position in Athens with a run in San Sebastian.

Tony Rogers
Performance Manager
Athletics New Zealand.