Athletics NZ hoping athletes are loyal to national champs

Kiwi shot put champion Tom Walsh.

Athletics New Zealand are backing their athletes to stay loyal to their national championships early next year.

The nationals are in Dunedin from March 4-6 but are a direct clash with a Melbourne international challenge event, sanctioned by the International Amateur Athletics Federation.

There have been fears, mingled with frustration that the Melbourne date would hurt the nationals with the best New Zealanders pulling out to head to Melbourne.

ANZ high performance boss Scott Goodman confirmed today the Dunedin date won't change, and he's of a mind that there will be a strong desire among the leading athletes to support New Zealand's pinnacle event.

"I've talked to a number of coaches and I'd say the majority of our athletes will want to do the nationals and will support them," Goodman said today.

The decision not to switch the Dunedin date was made because of the number of bookings for flights and accomodation that had already been made. While disappointed with the Melbourne date, Goodman has a hunch it may not result in wholesale defections across the Tasman.

"I don't think it's as big a thing as some people have reacted to it," Goodman said.

About half the Melbourne meet is international calibre where athletes are invited. Goodman expects plenty of New Zealanders will be sought.

Organisers must provide a certain percentage of international athletes and New Zealand is a popular picking ground, especially considering it will be out of season for Northern Hemisphere athletes.

New Zealand would usually expect to provide about 15-20 athletes.

"They need our athletes and I think the conflict of dates will affect them more. Some of our athletes that would have gone to a meet like that will choose our nationals," Goodman said.

There are some events in Melbourne where athletes will need to think hard about their choice.

Goodman cited the men's 400m hurdles, where New Zealand have two up and comers in Hamilton's Cameron French and Tauranga's Michael Cochrane, as one event where the athletes would need to think hard which event to attend.

"I can see individual cases where, for high performance reasons, they might want to go (to Melbourne) for the competition.

"We have 30-odd carded athletes and part of my role would be chatting to those athletes about 'what's the advantage in Melbourne over the nationals'."

New Zealand's world championship-bound athletes will be heading to Saga, Japan on August 5 for a pre-event camp.

There is some lateral thinking in choosing Japan as a staging post.

With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in mind, New Zealand are looking to make friends.

"We're looking to build a rapport leading to Tokyo. It's a long way out, but this town is bending over backwards to get us there and if we're happy there then we'll use them a fair bit over the next four to five years."

The world championships start in Beijing on August 22.