NZ Olympic athletics squad in good shape for Paris

New Zealand could be looking at its best Olympics athletics team line up yet for Paris, after some startling success for kiwis on the world stage this year

It won't be hard to spot a black singlet on the Olympic athletics track in Paris. 

Rather than being corralled into the throwing corner, our champions are running and jumping over a wealth of disciplines. 

For athletics commentator Hayden Shearman, the breadth of this team is the stand out factor.  

"It's almost like every event you need to tune in because we could well have a bolter who jumps up, sneaks a bronze medal, or we could have one of our medal favourites like the big four; Tom Walsh, Hamish Kerr, Eliza McCartney, Geordie Beamish; who could potentially snatch an Olympic title and become one of the big global athletics stars.

"That's what makes, I think, this year's Olympic year so exciting, is that there will be bolters, there will be some 'oh that didn't quite go to plan' for that athlete ... but that's the nature of sport and we've got such a big well-rounded team that there will be some great stories coming out of the team." 

Most of the track and field team for Paris has been named.  

With the addition of the 800 metre runner who's just broken Peter Snell's 62 year old record, there are now 16 athletes and another on the verge of selection. 

There's no sure-fire Dame Val Adams type superstar .... but could this be our best Olympic athletics team lineup yet? 

"I think there is a resurgence," says Shearman. 

"No longer are we just the middle distance - you know the Lydiard era from the '60s to the John Walker era in the 70s - we've got this beautiful spread, male and female, jumpers, throwers, sprinters, distance athletes, all competing at a very high level and a lot of our team are real chances of those medal hopes. 

While none are out-and-out favourites going into their events, "we've got a handful of athletes that we really do need to set our alarm clocks for," he says. 

A great deal of this pre-Games excitement was the World Indoor champs in Glasgow in March, where New Zealand recorded its best results ever - two golds, two silvers and third on the medal table. 

The sight of George (also known as Geordie) Beamish finishing with a magnificent kick in the 1500m - it's not even his favourite event - and Hamish Kerr bringing home the double with his high jump record got hearts beating faster back home. 

It's true that not every top athlete was at that meet. 

"When it comes to the big show in Paris everyone will be there, says commentator Sarah Cowley Ross. "And I think New Zealand is certainly putting their hand up to have a really good showing."

Cowley Ross is a former Olympic heptathlete, athlete's commission chair on the NZOC,  writer for Newsroom's Locker Room and also now a podcaster, on women's sport. 

She says if the results from this year, in particular from Glasgow, are anything to go by, we're looking good. 

"The rest of the world could not believe New Zealand's success," she tells The Detail. 

"I was speaking to Rob Walker who's the World Athletics lead commentator and he's like, 'what is going on with you kiwis?!'" 

She credits sprinter Zoe Hobbs' success with having a lot to do with athletes looking into events that New Zealand hasn't been traditionally strong in on the world stage. 

"Her running sub-11 last year, and a windy sub-11 at New Zealand nations, it really was a glass ceiling breaker I think, for the sport of athletics. When you look at the 100m, the prestige, the depth of the 100m - I mean it's the most expensive ticket in the Olympic programme, to get to a 100m final - maybe Zoe's success has ripples across other events." 

But Hobbs has previously been the victim of tight selection criteria introduced after the disastrous Sydney 2000 Olympics. 

Shearman believes her ability to fight back from that disappointment has made her stronger, and enabled her to punch her ticket to Paris. 

"She's absolutely had her work cut out for her for the last four years since Tokyo and missing out. She's had to just continually break the New Zealand record, break the Oceania record, be the fastest woman from this corner of the globe in order to say to the selectors, 'look, I deserve to be there'." 

Athletics New Zealand nominates the athlete and they're then confirmed by the NZOC, and Shearman says there will always be controversy in an Olympic year, especially among runners. 

One of the reasons is the global depth of running, which makes it "very hard to convince the selectors that you're a genuine top 16 candidate in the 100m, or the 1500m, or the marathon".  

"They do have an allowance for if you are a young up and coming athlete ... potentially they will be a little bit more lenient, but it goes right back to the year 2000 .... I remember Beatrice Faumuina, Hamish Carter having less than ideal days and I think that left a bit of a mark on the Olympic movement in New Zealand ... so the standard was raised." 

Shearman also credits Nick Willis, Silver and Bronze medalist Olympian in 2008 and 2016 in the 1500m, with showing New Zealanders they can compete with the "African juggernaut". 

"When he got bronze in 2008 which got upgraded to silver - now arguably should have been gold with the eventual gold medalist since being busted for doping as well - that really broke something in the New Zealand psyche saying we're no longer living in the glory days of Walker and Snell and Quax. We've actually got a hope for the 'now'." 

He says we're now seeing those who grew up watching the likes of Willis come into the fore. 

Listen to the podcast to find out how new high-tech shoes, and advances in nutrition, are also helping our athletes to beat records.

The athletics programme in France starts on August the second.  

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