Ominous signs for New Zealand’s

Athletics New Zealand (ANZ) has no immediate plans to review its under-fire selection criteria for the Commonwealth Games.

That’s despite outstanding Kiwi sprint talent Tiaan Whelpton admitting to having pondered if he’s wasting his time sticking with the sport, and the coach of New Zealand’s fastest man in history – Eddie Osei-Nketia – demanding administrators do so.

Gary Henley-Smith, OseiNketia’s coach, made the call after the men’s 100m final at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, won by Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala in 10.02sec.

Henley-Smith believes OseiNketia, who ran 10.08sec and broke his father’s long-standing national record at the world championships in Oregon last month, would have medalled on a day South African Akani Simbine snared silver in 10.13sec.

However, ANZ high performance director Scott Newman doesn’t buy it.

‘‘You just simply can’t say that’s a personal-best time, so he would have finished there. The athlete has to be there on the day, and competing and running those times on that specific day at that event,’’ Newman said.

‘‘Heading back to the world champions there with Eddie. On that basis, his 10.08sec, if he had been able to run that in the second round he would have got through. Unfortunately, he couldn’t back that up [10.29sec].’’

Needing to run one A standard (10.07sec) or two B standards (10.12sec) by the end of May to crack ANZ’s team for the Games, Osei-Nketia’s New Zealandrecord and second B mark was too little, too late.

Allocated 18 quota places for individual able-bodied athletes by the New Zealand Olympic Com