Kiwi Nick Willis, Middle Distance Old Dog, Runs Out of the Past But into the History Books

Any time a New Zealander takes to the Olympic track to run the 1500m, they run against ghosts.

Jack Lovelock. Peter Snell. John Walker. Gold medallists, all.

Theirs is a legacy whose shadow is continually cast on any Kiwi willing to push themselves to compete in the Olympics marque middle distance event.

For his entire career, Nick Willis has lived in that shadow. After all, to wear the black singlet in the 1500m is to summon the past – Lovelock in '36, Snell in '64 and Walker in '76 - and to attempt to re-animate it in the present.

What pressure, both internally and publicly. In reality, just making the start line in the final of the 1500m final at the Rio Olympics was massive enough for Willis; the silver medalist from Beijing.

At 33, Willis was the oldest competitor to reach the final. Hell, he had been the oldest in the London final four years; the second of three consecutive 1500m finals for the Kiwi.

No one Willis' age had ever taken a podium finish in the 1500m. The oldest before him was Albert Hill, a 31-year-old Briton took gold at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.

Hill was a former World War I fighter ace who was considered too old by many British selectors to run, what was then, the famed mile.

He proved the doubters wrong. And so too would Willis, today.

Willis, with a kick with 100m to go that belied his years. A finish that would deliver him bronze behind the United States' Matt Centrowicz – the first American Olympic 1500m champion in 100 years – and Morroccan Taoufik Makloufi, the reigning champion.

There he was, Nick Willis in the famed black singlet, arms raised and then patting Centrowicz on the back in congratulation.

The Old Dog of modern Olympic middle distance, making history, but satisfied with a race well run.

"It really doesn't feel like that same amount of crazy joy that I had eight years ago – it's more just satisfying," Willis told media afterwards.

"I proved to myself that I still had it in me. You're never quite sure, especially when you start getting greys in your hair. I guess I still do."

Willis' road to Rio – potentially his last ever Olympics – began in Lower Hutt, where he was born in 1983. He grew there, before heading to the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship.

Willis turned heads as a young runner in the States, and the weight of expectation back in New Zealand started to grow.

Did we have our new Lovelock? Our new Snell? Our new Walker? Kiwi middle distance running, at the Olympic level, hadn't been flash since Walker's glory days. The nation wanted a new hero in the black singlet.

Promise was delivered at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne with a 1500m gold, and then at the Beijing Olympics with a silver that was elevated from bronze when Bahrain's Rashid Ramzi was done for doping.

The years after saw Willis stay in the discussion when it came to the 1500m's best, but recently there have been struggles. Willis admitted to a porn addiction earlier this year, publically admitting his turmoil on Facebook.

For Rio though, Willis was full concentration mode.

"I stayed away from social media for a month," he said.

"I just wanted to stay away from all the distractions and focus on how do I perfect the art form of the 1500m."

The final started slow. The first two laps seemed little more than a weekend jog, with the event's big guns stalking the back of the field.

Kenya's Asbel Kiprop and Ronald Kwemoi, who took an early tumble. Uganda's Ronald Musagala.

Typically a runner who prefers in an inside trail, Willis went wide staying with the early leaders in the first two laps.

"It got very slow," Willis said, who admitted self-doubt swirled within him before the race.

"I think 2:15 [minutes] through the first 800m. I really wasn't all that confident in the warm-up and in the call-room right before the start time.

"I was like 'come on! Get your head in it! It's the Olympic Games final. You really believe you can win?'

"I though maybe I could sneak home for a bronze from the back. When the race slowed right down, it gave me a chance to get myself in the game.

"I ran right at the front and it got my head back into it, like at high school – that competitive instinct.

American Ben Blankenship – adorned with a ponytail and headband fitting someone Walker may have taken on in Montreal in '76 – pushed Willis into that inside spot in the second lap.

The Kiwi pushed back, barging Blankenship, and finding some extra room. But by the time the final lap loomed, Willis still sat in fifth with the big guns starting to fire.

The Kiwi veteran stayed with them.

You see, the Old Dog can never win by sheer athletic ability or physical presence. The Old Dog wins by cunning, craft and calculated risks.

That was Willis in the final. Leading up to it, his support team – from wife Sierra, coach Ron Warhurst (a Vietnam War veteran from the US) and his father Steve – drummed it into him: you have to stay wide to get a clean run on the finish line.

"That was the plan," he said. "But when I got to 450m to go, the only guys in front of me were the favourites.

"I knew they were guys that could hold it all the way to the home straight, and then it would pan out. Thankfully, it did.

"I gambled in trusting in the ability of those guys, but they bought me home."

Home he came, as others fell away. A finish that would stirred those who'd witnessed the exploits of those other Kiwi running greats.

This has been New Zealand's finest ever Olympics, with a record 18 medals. There's been the new generation coming through - with pole vaulter Eliza McCartney and shot-putter Tomas Walsh, who both snared bronze - but it was fitting Willis, a team regular for three Games now, would receive a podium too.

If there was any thoughts, both within him or back in New Zealand, about still living under the shadow from the black singlets of Lovelock, Snell and Walker in the 1500m, they are gone now.

In their place was just Nick Willis; Old Dog, veteran record-breaker, Olympic multi-medallist, New Zealander.

Now, firmly, amongst the Greats of Kiwi running - and putting the black singlet back to where it belongs.