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New Zealand's team to the Berlin world athletics championships in August will reflect quality rather than quantity, convener of selectors Graham O'Brien has warned.
Although impressed with the standard on display at the national athletics championships which finished in Wellington yesterday, O'Brien said the size of the world championships squad would not be large.
"The team for the world championships will be small -- we're a small country, and we set some pretty tough standards," he told NZPA.
O'Brien said the standards came from the sport's governing body, the IAAF, "and they know where to pitch these things".
Achieving an A qualifying standard all but guarantees selection, while things aren't quite so black and white for the lower B qualifiers.
"Anyone who does a performance will be considered on their merit. People who do Bs are treated as development athletes, and we still have to consider that they have the potential to carry on and become top 16 athletes," O'Brien said.
Beijing Olympic medallists Valerie Vili and Nick Willis have already been named for world championships.
Vili, who won gold in the women's shot put, was in action at Wellington's Newtown Park this weekend, winning her ninth consecutive national title on Saturday.
Not entirely happy with her 19.81m winning effort, which she termed afterwards an "average performance", Vili is now concentrating on her preparation for defending her world championship title in Berlin.
"We'll be fighting pretty hard to do that, it's going to be a tough competition," she said.
Willis, who took bronze over 1500m in Beijing, is in New Zealand at the moment but was unable to defend his national title due to a hip injury.
It went instead to consistent performer Gareth Hyett (Waikato-Bay of Plenty), who took out a close finish in three minutes 49.54 seconds from Canterbury's Richard Olsen (3min 49.66sec).
Another who has recently achieved the A qualifying standard was Auckland sprinter Monique Williams, who yesterday completed the 100m-200m-400m treble of national titles for the third time in as many years.
Williams, 23, clocked 22.98sec late last month to break Kim Robertson's 31-year-old national mark and set herself up for a good run in Berlin, where she has targeted a semifinal berth as achievable.
O'Brien said that the qualifying deadline had been extended for the first time until late July.
"Previously it used to end about now, at the start of April. But this is no longer the place in the world to qualify -- if you want quality competition, it costs money and you have to be in Europe or the United States," he said.
"It's reasonable to expect that people who are in form in July should be able to perform well in August."
O'Brien emphasised the importance of performing well against good opposition.
"We'll look at where they've done them and who they've done them against, because at the end of the day it's about competition," he said.
"It's not just about achieving a standard, it's how you go against people who might be worth something.
"We look for true competitors -- we look for winners."