Willis’ Photo Finish

Olympic bronze medallist Lower Hutt athlete Nick Willis, 25, has won New York’s Fifth Avenue Mile, a race which John Walker won in 1984. Michigan-based Willis finished in 3 minutes, 50.5 seconds to edge American Olympian Bernard Lagat by 0.1 seconds. “From my experiences at the Olympics and a couple of other races in Europe, I’ve learnt that, even in that much pain, I can hold my form in a certain way that can get me an extra inch or two that is needed to win the race,” he said. “I just eked it out, dipped over the line, and no-one knew who had won. They thought it might have been a dead heat, but then they looked at photo finish and I’d won by 0.1sec.”