KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - Nick Willis revived New Zealand's glorious 1500m tradition at the Olympic Games last night, his bronze taking the New Zealand medal tally to eight.
New Zealand now has its best medal haul since Barcelona 16 years ago, with five days of competition left.
Willis unwound from an awkward spot at the 200m to grab an unexpected bronze, just like Davies in Tokyo in 1964 and Dixon at Munich in 1972.
He raised both arms as he crossed the line just .05 seconds in front of Frenchman Medhi Baala, a reprise of his Melbourne Commonwealth Games celebrations in 2006.
Earlier, triathlete Bevan Docherty won bronze. Silver medallist behind Hamish Carter at Athens four years ago, he again featured in a desperate sprint to the line. This time German Jan Frodeno and Sydney 2000 champion Simon Whitfield of Canada just had his measure.
Shane Reed finished 34th while Kris Gemmell struggled through a painful foot injury to finish 39th.
Tom Ashley made his first tactical blunder of the Olympic regatta at a bad time, slumping to 32nd in today's 10th race, after an error at the start dropped him to 24th at the first mark.
Ashley, who had not finished further back than eighth, discarded today's result but was still one point behind co-leaders Nick Dempsey (Britain) and Julian Bontemps of France.
Fellow boardsailer Barbara Kendall also struggled with the light airs and the tail-end of a chest infection, finishing 21st in her 10th race.
One of New Zealand's most decorated Olympians with a gold, silver and bronze, Kendall goes into today's medal race sixth, an insurmountable 22 points off the bronze position held by Briton Bryony Shaw.
A horror first half of the regatta came back to haunt Andrew Murdoch when he won the Laser medal race. Having won the final two races, Murdoch finished fifth overall, just six points off the bronze won by Italy.
In the Laser Radial, Jo Aleh capped a forgettable few days to finish ninth in the medal race and seventh overall after leading at the halfway point.
And in other action on the water, kayaker Steven Ferguson qualified for the K1 500m semifinals with a fourth placing in his heat at Shunyi. The top six paddlers from each of the four heats qualified for the semifinals.
Women's K1 500m paddler Erin Taylor finished sixth out of eight in her heat, placing her 14th out of the 25 paddlers.
Synchronised swimming sisters Lisa and Nina Daniels were 23rd out of 24 in the duet free routine.
And at the Laoshan Velodrome, Greg Henderson and Hayden Roulston finished 10th in the madison.
NEW ZEALAND OLYMPIC GAMES 1500M MEDALLISTS
1936, Berlin: Jack Lovelock, gold, 3min 47.8sec, world record.
1964, Tokyo: Peter Snell, gold, 3min 38.1sec; John Davies, bronze, 3min 39.6sec.
1972, Munich: Rod Dixon, bronze, 3min 37.46sec.
1976, Montreal: John Walker, gold, 3min 39.17sec.
2008, Beijing: Nick Willis, bronze, 3min 34.16sec.
- NZPA
