{"id":558469,"date":"2026-08-04T06:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T06:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558469\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T06:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T06:44:10","slug":"tiaan-whelpton-new-zealands-fastest-man-opens-up-on-tough-commonwealth-games-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558469\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiaan Whelpton: New Zealand\u2019s fastest man opens up on \u2018tough\u2019 Commonwealth Games snub"},"content":{"rendered":"

That 10.10s would have got him seventh in this year\u2019s 100m final \u2013 one of the fastest finals in a long time \u2013 and would have at least medalled at every other Games in the last 22 years. The selection standard of 10.00s would have won gold at the previous five Games.<\/p>\n

It meant Whelpton fell just short of representing his country because of the controversial system, a feeling many Kiwi athletes over the years know well \u2013 including women\u2019s gold medallist Zoe Hobbs<\/a>, who qualified for the Tokyo Olympics but was denied selection because of the same policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TiaanTiaan Whelpton has a personal best of 10.10s in the 100m. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it hurts to not be there,\u201d Whelpton told the Herald. \u201cAs an athlete, obviously my goal is to compete and to represent the country and to do my best. And I certainly believe I have the capability to have been competitive over there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely at the peak of my career, at least, I\u2019m the best I\u2019ve ever been right now. This is by far the best season I\u2019ve had. I managed to go and compete at two World Championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say because I ran these times this season I would have gone over there and won a medal or anything. But I certainly think I have the capability to be there. And I think if I was there, maybe I could inspire a few people too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whelpton said the current system \u201cdisadvantages you if you\u2019re in a deeper event\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a great policy to throw across all sports and events as a blanket policy, especially when there\u2019s a complete lack of consideration for the depth of certain events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We lost a generational talent\u2019<\/p>\n

Another athlete who has spoken out about the selection criteria was fellow sprinter Eddie Osei-Nketia, who switched his allegiance to Australia<\/a> because of frustrations with the New Zealand system.<\/p>\n

Whelpton said Osei-Nketia, who finished sixth in this year\u2019s 100m final for Australia with a time of 10.06s, also wouldn\u2019t have qualified under New Zealand\u2019s selection criteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunnily enough, me and Eddie have the exact same best time of 10.10s in the qualifying period,\u201d Whelpton said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, nothing has changed, despite Eddie having gone and left us. And we\u2019ve lost that generational talent. And it doesn\u2019t look like they\u2019ve learned anything from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TiaanTiaan Whelpton (left) with Eddie Osei-Nketia at a track meet in Christchurch in 2021. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Cape Town-born Whelpton admits he has considered potentially following suit and defecting away from New Zealand, but \u201cit\u2019s not something I\u2019m going to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very ambitious and keen on being the first New Zealander to run under the 10-second mark. So you won\u2019t see me ever running in a singlet that\u2019s not black on the world stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here to stay. This is home for me. My passport\u2019s black. My singlet will be black.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd not to say anything bad about Eddie. Having gone to Australia, I absolutely think that was probably the best and smartest move for him … as he is receiving way more support there, which evidently is working already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whelpton said he isn\u2019t trying to \u201cmoan\u201d or \u201ccomplain\u201d, and remains grateful for the support and the work done by the sporting bodies, who \u201cdo a lot of things right\u201d, but he believes the current system could be more equitable and nuanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do really well at a lot of these big Games. But I think there\u2019s a case to say that we could be doing even better, which is a shame.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the one thing that really makes me sad is I\u2019d hate to think how many athletes or how many potentially great athletes have been discouraged at some point by the way things are structured and gave up or quit, or in some cases, like we know, defect to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TiaanTiaan Whelpton (centre) during the 2026 Sir Graeme Douglas International in February. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

Athletics New Zealand told the Herald in a statement \u201cthe nomination standards for all events are generated using the same formula and criteria\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 100m, along with several other events, have world-class depth within the Commonwealth. The nomination standards reflect this level of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s Commonwealth Games athletics team had five athletes making their senior debut at the international level. From a team size of 20, that means a quarter of the team are getting their first international representative opportunity at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ll still get it done\u2019<\/p>\n

Whelpton continued to be a strong supporter of his fellow athletes from afar, but he admits \u201cit\u2019s a tough watch from home\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was also recently dropped from High Performance Sport New Zealand\u2019s funding programme because of falling short in another blanket selection criteria, which has meant he has had to self-fund as an athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s many athletes ranked above me or athletes who are running quicker than me that aren\u2019t doing it fulltime … and unfortunately that\u2019s just what it takes to be great in the deepest sporting event in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had hoped to compete in Europe this season, but it\u2019s \u201cway too expensive this year\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we elected to come home, drop the season early and just get straight into training to build up for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his recent setbacks, Whelpton is determined to keep his head down and do what he does best: run really fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019ll never do is complain. I\u2019ll still get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That 10.10s would have got him seventh in this year\u2019s 100m final \u2013 one of the fastest finals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51038,127,8231,14768,29420,6489,305,302,685,5158,274707,14771,117,111,139,69,90,2680,5351,8808,312,17155,213,1361,1961,274705,2044,13983,810,274706,6730,379,1530,2963],"class_list":["post-558469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-commonwealth","tag-despite","tag-event","tag-every","tag-fastest","tag-games","tag-have","tag-its","tag-last","tag-man","tag-medalled","tag-missed","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-opens","tag-previous","tag-running","tag-says","tag-snub","tag-sports","tag-that","tag-this","tag-tiaan","tag-time","tag-tough","tag-up","tag-whelpton","tag-would","tag-year","tag-years","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}