Athletics: Willis not fit to race yet

Nick Willis says he will not risk a premature return to action. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand runner Nick Willis has pulled out of next month's world athletics championships in Berlin, saying he is unwilling to risk a premature return to action following hip surgery.

The Beijing Olympics 1500m bronze medallist said rehabilitation after surgery in April was going well but he did not have the base to compete at the world championships, where he had tentatively targeted the 800m event rather than his favoured 1500m.

He and coach Ron Warhurst believed it was better to wait until next season and build up to the Commonwealth Games.

"So long as we don't do anything hasty we will come back fitter, faster, stronger, all that kind of stuff," Willis said from his Ann Arbor, Michigan, home yesterday.

"The time when one is most vulnerable to getting injury is after a previous injury and I am trying to avoid that.

"I have got three years to the [London] Olympics and that's most important. There's no point rushing to do anything half-heartedly.

"The rehabilitation has been going well but we felt it is not worth the risk of doing the extra intense training required to get race-sharp for Berlin.

"I am up to running 50 to 60 minutes a day and the hip is strong for long runs but not for doing the faster stuff yet.

"With that, we can't race but I am excited to be doing base training and will utilise this time getting five or six months of fitness training so I can have a good 2010."

Willis has been working up to six hours daily at the physiotherapy clinic and was spending the time fine-tuning things.

He had set a tentative goal of defending his Fifth Ave mile title in New York in September but it was unlikely he would be there.

"It is just something to keep accountability [towards training] in the back of my mind," he said.

Willis said he would return to New Zealand in December and January to train in preparation for the United States indoor season, which began in February.

Meanwhile, he said he was waiting for an outcome from the next International Olympics Committee meeting in mid-August to learn whether he would be awarded the Olympic 1500m silver medal.

The race winner, Bahrain's Rashid Ramzi, tested positive for the banned blood booster CERA (continuous erythropoiesis receptor activator) when the IOC trawled through drug samples from the Games earlier in the year.

Kenya's silver medallist, Asbel Kipruto Kiprop, stood to be declared the winner with Willis promoted to silver.

- NZPA