KEY POINTS:
Marathon runner Liza Hunter-Galvan is confident her Olympic preparations are on track after finally gaining late selection.
Texas-based Hunter-Galvan, 39, was yesterday included in the team for Beijing after winning her fight against Athletics New Zealand selectors.
She said that she had continued her training schedule despite the uncertainty of whether she would be going and had just completed a stint at altitude in Arizona.
"One of the things my lawyers and everyone kept telling me was, `keep your training up, keep your training up'," she said today.
"Every time I went to run a race, they said, `You have to do well here, you have to do well here.' I think I got more pressure from them than from anyone else."
Hunter-Galvan didn't get her hopes up when Athletics NZ high performance director Kevin Ankrom rang to tell her she had finally been nominated.
The nomination still had to be approved by the New Zealand the NZ Olympic Committee.
She got confirmation of her selection late at night, United States time, by listening to a New Zealand radio station on the internet.
"That was when I really knew I had done it," she said.
"It was an exciting time. It was true relief, a final relief."
Hunter-Galvan was a key omission when the first group of athletes for Beijing was named in April.
She had run an A qualifying time last October in finishing fifth in Amsterdam in a personal best two hours 30 minutes 40 seconds.
Athletics NZ, which said it would look at the prospects of a top-16 finish at Beijing and would take previous performances into account when nominating athletes, had not forwarded her name to the NZOC.
Hunter-Galvan took her case to the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand, which directed the selectors to reconsider their decision.
The tribunal said there should have been further factual inquiry into her performances at the Athens Olympics, the Helsinki world championships and the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
Her performances in those three events had originally counted against her.
Hunter-Galvan, who was 51st at Athens, her only previous Olympics, said she wasn't sure throughout the appeal process whether she would be successful.
"I had a lot of ups and downs," she said.
"When I thought things were looking good and I didn't hear anything, it changed my thought processes."
The support she got from the likes of former Olympians Peter Snell and Lorraine Moller had been "immense".
"When you question yourself and you ask, `Is it me, do I not deserve it, have I done something wrong?' and they back you, it means a lot," she said.
"It means more than you can imagine."
She held no grudges against Athletics NZ for what she had had to go through.
"I don't think it's healthy and I'm really good at forgiving," she said.
"I just hope the policy and procedure is looked at and possibly revamped."
On her prospects of finishing in the top 16 at Beijing in an event that traditionally is the most difficult to predict on the athletics programme, she said she would be giving her best.
"Favourites don't necessarily come out on top, the fastest runners don't necessarily come out on top," she said.
"I do think I have a reasonable shot at top 16. If it's my day and everything goes right for me, I definitely have a shot.
"But everyone else is going to be gunning for it too. You're up against 80 to 90 girls that are equally tough."
- NZPA
