"I am leaving Christchurch because there is no track here," Wardell said on her Facebook blog.
Wardell (33) was ranked 33rd in the world in the heptathlon last year with the 5988 points she scored when winning the Canterbury championships.
"The track at QE2 has been badly damaged since the earthquake and can't be used," Wardell said. "There are no plans to replace it or build another in Christchurch before next summer. I am being forced to relocate to a town with a track."
Dunedin was the best option, because her weight conditioning coach Angus Ross lives in the city.
The Academy of Sport is also moving into the new Forsyth Barr Stadium at the end of the year, so there will be a brand new training facility to use.
"While I will be sad to leave Christchurch, I also think a change of scene will bring some freshness to my training," Wardell said.
"A change is as good as a holiday." Wardell was sidelined last year after getting a hairline fracture in her right foot when in medal contention at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and missed the entire New Zealand track season.
"I saw the surgeon yesterday and he is happy with how my foot is progressing," Wardell said. "I am scheduled to have surgery again in three weeks to get the screws taken out of my foot.
" Then it's just a few days on crutches, followed by a few weeks of taking it easy to let the wound heal and the holes in the bone fill up, and then I will be good to run." "I'm getting closer to being able to do full training, but I know I still have to be patient. There are still 416 days until the London Olympics," she said.
Wardell has been coached by Andrew Maclennan since 1997.
He has recently been appointed a full-time performance coach with Athletics New Zealand in charge of sprints, jumps and combined events.
He has been employed to coach athletes within the Athletics New Zealand High Performance Programme and to support the personal coaches of other programme athletes.
"It's pretty exciting for him, to be recognised as one of the top coaches in the country," Wardell said.
Wardell has just come back from Dunedin where she did a "conditioning heptathlon" with Angus Ross who has developed a scoring system for seven gym-based events that are designed to mimic the seven events of the heptathlon.
"It gives me something to focus on while I can't compete and adds a competitive aspect to testing at the end of every training block," Wardell said.
Wardell worked for a consulting engineering firm in Christchurch from 2004 to 2009 and then went back to university full time to finish her Masters degree in transport engineering.
She handed in her thesis in May 2009 and then decided to be a fulltime athlete to focus on the New Delhi Commonwealth Games.
Wardell started training for the heptathlon at the end of 2004, after missing selection for the Olympics in the 400m hurdles.
Melbourne in 2006 was her first Commonwealth Games. She has represented NZ numerous times, at the World University Games 2001 and 2005, at the World Champs in 2003, and the Olympics in 2008.
Fact File
Rebecca Wardell
Age: 33.
Hometown: Christchurch.
Education: Master's degree in Transport Engineering, Canterbury University.
Occupation: Athlete.
Sport: Athletics.
Coach: Andrew Maclennan.
Event: Heptathlon.
Record: NZ rep since 2001, competed at World University Games 2001 (semifinalist) and 2005 (9th), Commonwealth games 2006 (7th) and 2010, world championships 2003, Olympic Games 2008 (23rd).
Personal best scores: 5566 (at Izmir 2005), 5845 (Melbourne 2006), 5714 (Christchurch 2008), 6108 (Ratingen 2008).
