Roy Williams: Willis joins women at top of rankings

Nick Willis

Nick Willis has moved into favouritism - along with Valerie Vili and Beatrice Faumuina - to win athletics gold in Melbourne, according to latest rankings.

While Vili and Faumuina have been at or near the top of their rankings for some time, Willis has shot to the top because of one of the less palatable features of the Commonwealth Games - the four Kenyans ranked ahead of him have all pulled out, most to compete elsewhere.

Willis has also risen as a gold medal prospect with his defeat of Australia's Craig Mottram in a 3m 52s mile in Wanganui recently. Mottram is entered in the 1500m and 5000m and it is thought he will plump for the latter to be assured of a gold medal in front of his home crowd.

But while Willis is showing signs of growing closer to fulfilling his considerable potential, there's no guarantee the owner of the fastest time going into the Games will take the gold.

For a start, there will be three other Kenyans in the field and, while they will not be ranked ahead of Willis, any Kenyan athlete must be respected, even if few people have heard of them.

In addition, Games such as these are all about the event on the day - and Games finals are often not great respecters of reputation. Take, for example, a favourite son of Melbourne, Ron Clarke, the distance runner of impeccable credentials and ability who held 18 world records but who never won Olympic gold.

Willis has been demonstrating his talent on more than one occasion in the build-up to the Melbourne Games but last week was laid low by an illness that forced him to move out of the family home in Lower Hutt.

That setback may have negated Willis' advantage of being acclimatised, whereas his highly-rated rivals, England's Michael East and Nick McCormick and Canada's Kevin Sullivan, will be coming to Melbourne from a Northern Hemisphere winter.

The other interesting pointers to emerge from the rankings are the New Zealanders who are close to a top-three ranking and could push their way into medal contention, including javelin thrower Stuart Farquhar, walkers Craig Barrett and Tony Sargisson, decathlete Brent Newdick, 10,000m runner Michael Aish, high jumper Angela McKee, pole vaulter Melina Hamilton and long jumper Chantal Brunner.

* Roy Williams won gold in the decathlon at the 1966 Empire Games in Kingston, Jamaica. He was ranked first in the Commonwealth at the time.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY