KEY POINTS:
Willis will join a top field of middle-distance runners in the 3000m at the Tauranga Twilight meeting at Tauranga Domain on New Year's Day.
The 23-year-old Michigan-based star is heading home to Lower Hutt for Christmas, and will compete in a handful of local events, including having a crack at Rod Dixon's grass-track mile record.
His presence is a major boost for Tauranga officials, who continue to push for an all-weather synthetic running track for the region.
"It'll be great for people who love athletics, and even those who just appreciate a world-class sportsman in full flight, to see him running at the domain," Tauranga Athletics president Malcolm Taylor said.
"It's fantastic for the event and already there's quite a buzz throughout the athletics fraternity with the news that he's running - I know there'll be a few guys locally keen to pit themselves against a Commonwealth Games gold medallist."
Willis has competed in Tauranga before - three years ago he won the 800m and he also helped to set an unofficial national junior 4 x 800m record at the domain.
He'll have some tough competition at the Twilight 3000m, although top local runner Ben Ruthe has no doubts who the favourite will be.
"Nick won a 5km race down in Wellington last year and I came second - he just had strength to burn," Ruthe said. "He's got so much ability from 800m up to 5km."
Ruthe, runner-up in the national road-race this year, has a best time for the 3000m of 8m 6s, while Willis ran 7m 44.9s in Boston two years ago.
Also lining up in the main event will be former Tauranga runners Angus Bell and Glenn Hughes, and Ramblers stars Iain and Kyle McDonald and Jason Cameron.
Taylor believes it's the start of the meet regaining its past lustre.
"It certainly adds prestige to an event that over the past decade has leaned towards becoming more for the kids.
"We've had Olympic champions here in the past - John Walker, even though he wasn't the current Olympic champion, ran a sub-four-minute mile at our New Year's Day twilight meet when he was chasing the milestone of becoming the first man to [run] 100 sub-four-minute miles.
"There were in excess of 2000 people at the domain that day to watch."
A teenage Walker also ran against Dick Quax in the 800m in the early 1970s and his performance that day, when he beat Quax, signalled his arrival as an international-class athlete.
Willis has also indicated he's bringing an American friend who is keen to run some events - the pair will run at Rotorua on December 31, at Taupo on January 2 and at a 2000m invitational in Wellington on January 6.
He'll do battle there with fellow New Zealand mile specialist Gareth Hyett, who will also be his main competition at the Hutt Recreation Reserve mile on January 17. Dixon set the record there of 3m 59.5s in 1972.
Ruthe, meanwhile, is hoping this meet will be the start of many more to come in Tauranga.
"It's absolutely awesome - it sounds like things are progressing well with the Millennium Track Trust and hopefully in a year's time we'll be closer to having a synthetic track, and that will be huge.
"We'd get sub-four-minute miles being run in Tauranga again."
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
