Athletics: Photos give Willis a placing lift

Photographic evidence shows New Zealand 1500m star Nick Willis beat world champion Hicham El Guerrouj in Rome.

But he was denied his famous scalp by a results error.

Willis was credited with ninth place in the Rome 1500m on July 3, qualifying for the Olympic Games in 3m 32.68s, only .04s behind the Moroccan, who was eighth.

Photo-finish images show he nailed the fading El Guerrouj on the line, but their times were somehow reversed in the results.

New Zealand athletics statistician Peter Heidenstrom said yesterday there was no doubt the results were wrong.

It was up to the International Athletics Federation to correct the error and Athletics New Zealand should ensure that was done.

"It is quite a milestone to be able to say you beat the world recordholder and world champion," he said.

"It's quite a feather in his cap, it should be corrected."

Athletics New Zealand high-performance manager Tony Rogers and Willis are in Europe preparing for the Olympics and could not be contacted.

British statistician Peter Matthews, who publishes the Association of Track and Field Statisticians annual, knows a mistake was made.

After the race, Willis, 21, said he was not upset at narrowly failing to finish ahead of El Guerrouj.

"Once he got pushed back to third or fourth with 80m to go, he pulled the plug. It wouldn't have meant much to me because he was easing down."

Officially, Willis took 3.56s off his personal best in Rome. The 1976 Olympic champion, John Walker, is the only New Zealander to have gone faster.

It now appears Willis ran 3m 32.64s, even closer to the New Zealand record of 3m 32.4s set by Walker in 1975.

Willis' father, Richard, said he was sure a mistake had been made.

"He did beat El Guerrouj in Rome."

He had written to the Rome meeting director who had passed his letter on to the referee.

"This happened to Nick last year. He ran only two races in Europe, one was in Zagreb, where exactly the same thing happened.


"It took about three months, but they finally swapped them around - it goes on all the time."

Willis will have another stern test when takes on an elite field in Zurich today. His nine opponents have clocked faster times this year than the New Zealander.

- NZPA