Background

When Nick Willis was little, his sister Mieke would send him out to run around the block, again and again, pretending to time his efforts just to burn off his overabundance of energy. Those early laps paid off.  Following in the footsteps of his older brother, Steve (the 1998 Div. II national champ at 1500m for Western States College in Gunnison, Colo.), Nick is now seen as the heir apparent to New Zealand greats John Walker and Peter Snell. In Beijing, he became the first kiwi since Walker in 1976 to earn an Olympic track medal.

In 2005, in only his second professional race, Nick ran 3:32.38 to break Walker’s 30-year-old national record for 1500m, and his Commonwealth Games gold medal – after being ill for a week with a virus, no less – was a fitting follow-up. (In July 2006, Willis lowered his own national mark to 3:32.17).

Following the 2007 IAAF World Championships, Nick married Sierra Boucher. Over the winter, his brother Steve began acting as an assistant coach, who along with his wife and baby had traveled with Nick for much of the year. Hence the birth of Team Willis, united in their quest for Olympic success. It was this combination that helped Nick achieve a lifelong goal of an Olympic medal when Nick came from behind with fewer than 150m remaining in the 2008 Olympic 1500m final to capture the bronze medal. Nick went on to a number of top finishes at grand prix races in Europe before capping off his season with a win at the Fifth Avenue Mile in Manhattan, the first Kiwi to win the famed road race since 1976 Olympic 1500m champion John Walker won in 1984.

A tough racer and a devout Christian, Nick's renewed faith in his early 20s helped him come to terms with the cancer death of his mother when he was 4. Nick also explains: “My faith has taught me that at the end of the day, whether I win or lose, I am still the same person.”