“It was a bit of a surprise,” she said from Auckland, where she works for Hockey New Zealand, and is now preparing to run the World title 1500m heats on Friday (Nanjing time). “It wasn’t even on my radar, until I got the call.” Now 33, Nagel spent six years in the American college system with Providence University in Rhode Island, for which she was co-captain of a team that won an NCAA cross-country title. She returned to New Zealand and based herself on Auckland’s North Shore, but maintains her close family and friends ties to Hawke’s Bay, still calling it “home”, reflected also in her decision to avoid breaching her own sense of provincial loyalties by running national events in club colours rather than those of the North Harbour centre. With a best 1500m time of 4m 6.31s eight months ago in Dublin, a few weeks after winning an Oceania 1500m title in Suva, she’s regarded by Athletics New Zealand as one of three “black singlet debutants”. The team of 12 includes nine from the Paris Olympics last year, including Olympics high jump gold medallist Hamish Kerr, Kiwi sprint queen Zoe Hobbs, shot putters and 2010 junior championships teammates Tom Walsh and Jacko Gill, and fellow 1500m runner Maia Ramsden, who ran her best of 4m 2.2s in the Paris semifinals. Nagel’s titles include road running and cross-country, and it comes from an unlikely beginning, recalled by first coach Mick Cull, a former 400m specialist who had been sports co-ordinator at Taradale High School. She was a badminton player, and he was training the then-young school pupil and nationally rated 800m hope Ashley Aitken, who needed some training company. Nagel caught the eye in the school cross-country, was invited in, and, Cull says: “She loved it.” Nagel rarely treats her trips home to the Bay as a break, and says she knows just about every possible training route in and out of Taradale and around Napier. Largely funded by her self, friends and other faithful supporters, although this week’s trip is Athletics NZ funded, she says her selection is “pretty cool.” Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.