Nick Willis has broken the New Zealand 1500m record, running 3:32.38 in Paris to break John Walker's 30 year old national record by 0.02 of a second.
You don't get much slimmer than that in athletics, but the symbolism of beating Walker's 1975 time is huge. (The New Zealand Herald article linked to says that Walker's national record was from the 1974 Commonwealth Games. It wasn't. Walker ran 3:32.5 at Christchurch, behind Filbert Bayi's winning 3:32.2 with both breaking the world record. Walker ran 3:32.4 the next year in Europe, before breaking the mile world record and the 3:50 barrier)
There was an interview a few weeks ago where Willis matter-of-factly stated his ambition to break all the New Zealand national records between 1500m and 5000m. Most of the publicity for his European campaign said he'd go after the 1500m record in Oslo (where Walker set the previous record), so perhaps we'll see him run even faster then. Here's hoping. He'll also attempt the 3000m record this month.
I met Nick years ago when he was probably 9 years old. His father is a colleague of my father at Victoria University. Nick's older brother, Steve, was a contemporary of mine in Wellington, and we ran together occasionally. Such are the ways of a small city like Wellington that plodders like myself can run with future sub-four minute milers and older brothers of future national record holders. Nick had the same coach in high school that I did, Don Dalgliesh. This says much about Don's generosity in coaching 9:40s 3000m runners like myself, along with low 1:50s 800m runners like Nick Willis.
In that small way hearing about a national record like this means something more than a world record I have no connection with at all.
Posted by robe0419 at July 2, 2005 07:11 PM | TrackBack