Willis primed to click in London
At 34 and with more miles on the clock than a well-travelled rally car, Nick Willis has learned to let his body tell him how he’s feeling heading into a major championship.
That’s why New Zealand’s dual Olympic 1500m medallist has a spring in his step and a smile on his face heading into the world athletics championships in London, despite a couple of major reasons to feel just a little anxious.
Of course Willis has yet to nail a world champs meet like he has, say, the Olympics where he has the silver from 2008 in Beijing and bronze last year in Rio to show for two brilliantly executed campaigns. He also has three Commonwealth Games medals and a world indoors bronze from last year but his best finish in five previous cracks at the global event has been his sixth placing in Beijing two years ago.
Then there’s his travails of 2017, when chronic shin splints forced the Michigan-based Hutt Valley athlete to make a belated start to his season and meant chasing the London qualifying time right up until late July in Monaco (where he has run his four fastest times ever).
Never mind all that. Willis has been round the track a few times and learnt how to take a setback in his stride, not to mention negotiate a psychological hurdle.
‘‘I’m in a very positive frame of mind as we speak,’’ Willis said from the quaint Italian village of Spoleto, where he has been based for his pre-worlds preparations. He heads to London tomorrow and will race the heats of the 1500m on August 10.
‘‘I just had one of my best ever workouts.
‘‘It’s the key test before a big race, and it was right up there with what I did before Rio and before a couple of my really fast Monaco races.
‘‘That was really encouraging. We’ve been waiting for my body to finally click. You don’t know when and where it’s going to happen, but normally it suddenly clicks from sort of grinding through everything to where it just feels more effortless.
‘‘The break I took after Monaco to get back to some foundational training, putting in the miles, has helped my body make that next step. It’s exciting to be coming up into my fitness for a championship, as opposed to trying to hang on to it.’’
If anything there’s a freshness about Willis as he works around searing 40 degree heat the last few days in Spoleto, where he enjoys the conviviality of a village where everybody knows your name.
As for the worlds whiffs in the past, he just says: ‘‘It keeps me hungry. It’s another box I haven’t ticked. But it’s still me versus 10 of the best guys in the world, and it’s the same guys every year.’’
Willis has a theory that the occasion of the Olympics ‘‘gets the best of a few of my competitors’’, and that at the world champs, with less pressure, they run with more freedom. Thus why he’s found success tougher.
‘‘But the more times you put yourself on the start line healthy and in decent shape, the more you give yourself a chance.’’
With the worlds 1500m being three races in four days, as opposed to three in five at the Games, there’s a different formula, too.
The outstanding form of Kenyans Elijah Manangoi and Timothy Cheruiyot this year also tells the Kiwi veteran the London final may not be the tactical race that tends to play out at major meets.
‘‘In recent years we’ve had eight or nine guys all of really similar ability, so no-one has wanted to put themselves out there because they’ll just get mowed down.
‘‘But this season a couple of Kenyans have had the measure of the rest of the field quite convincingly. In Monaco they were 3-4 seconds ahead of everyone else.
‘‘So perhaps it’s in their interest to try their hand and if they make a break, maybe people aren’t just going to be able to sit and kick on them. That’s part of my reasoning for putting in a big mileage block after Monaco, to increase my endurance.
‘‘Hopefully I’m prepared for both types of races.’’