Athletics: Miller betters B standard in hurdles

The selectors are making it tough on Otago athlete Andrea Miller.

She has broken the B qualifying standard but has still not been named in the New Zealand world championship team.

Miller (27), a physiotherapist, broke her own New Zealand 100m hurdles record in Geneva last week.

Her winning time of 13.10sec was a personal best time by by two hundredths of a second.

Miller also bettered the B standard of 13.11sec for the world athletics championships in Berlin in August.

The A standard is 12.96sec.

Miller is based in Belgium and has been in regular contact with her Dunedin-based coach, Brent Ward.

"Andrea is very focused and is doing everything she can to get to the world championships," Ward told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.

"It is not easy chasing meetings in Europe. I want her to focus on the major meetings."

Ward has been pleased with her form and intends to cut her racing down from four to two more meetings before the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, from July 1-12.

Andrew Moore, the other Otago athlete in the New Zealand Universities team, is also coached by Ward.

He won his first senior men's individual title in the 400m at the national track and field championships in Wellington in March when he beat training mate and three-time champion Cory Innes.

Moore (24), a business student at the University of Otago, leads the national ranking in the event with his personal best time of 46.95sec that he ran in Invercargill last summer.

This will be the first time that Moore has contested the World University Games, but Miller competed in Bangkok two years ago.

She was seventh in Thailand in the 100m hurdles setting a then New Zealand record of 13.20sec.

Miller lowered this record to 13.12sec in Belgium last year.

There will be 9500 competitors and officials from 170 countries competing in 17 sports at the 25th World University Games.

It is a tough competition with the standard expected to be between that of the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics.

To be in contention for the final Miller will have to run a low 13sec.

During the past three years Miller has become the most consistent record breaker in New Zealand athletics.

In the 2006-07 season she broke the 100m hurdles record three times and a year later she reduced it twice more to 13.13sec and then to 13.12sec in Belgium.

Miller had niggling knee problems and did not race in the New Zealand season, concentrating on her build-up for Europe.

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NZ team

For the World University Games

Men: David Ambler (Canterbury), Stuart Farquhar (Waikato), Andrew Moore (Otago), Brent Newdick (Auckland University of Technology), Johan Smalberger (Auckland), Jeffrey Thumath (Auckland).

Women: Sarah Cowley (Massey), Andrea Koenen (Auckland), Andrea Miller (Otago), Monique Williams (Waikato).

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