Peter Snell: NZ’s Olympic colossus
Sir Peter Snell’s Olympic career was a mirrorimage of his races – over quickly, with everyone else trailing behind him.
Snell was New Zealand’s greatest Olympian – and it’s hard to envisage this country producing a more dominant figure at the peak of world athletics in the future.
The middle-distance legend, who died in Dallas on Friday just short of his 81st birthday, has stood atop New Zealand’s proud list of elite Olympians like the colossus he was when striding around the tracks of Rome and Tokyo.
Behind him are the likes of other towering figures of NZ sporting success at the Olympic Games – Sir Mark Todd, Ian Ferguson, Paul MacDonald, Valerie Adams, Danyon Loader and Barbara Kendall. Such was Snell’s majesty and mastery, however, that he topped them all.
The above crew have a variety of attributes – lengthy success over a series of Olympiads, big medals hauls at one Games – but none of them achieved what Snell did. Perfection. He ran in three events over two Games, and won them all.
When he completed the 800m-1500m double at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, a German journalist turned to a Kiwi colleague in the stands and commented ‘‘This is not a man, this is a god!’’
That’s how he must have seemed to all his rivals – a springheeled runner with the build of an All Black loose forward.
Born in Opunake in 1938, Snell moved to the Waikato in 1949 but it wasn’t until he came under the wing of moonlighting milkman Arthur Lydiard that he began to realise his full potential.
‘‘Peter, with the sort of speed you’ve got, if you do the endurance training, you could be one of our best middle-distance runners,’’ Lydiard told him.
Snell then became part of Lydiard’s training group that pounded out long runs in the Waitakere Ranges and also included Murray Halberg, who won gold in the 5000m in Rome on the same day Snell announced himself to the athletics world.
Lydiard had no doubt what would happen – leaning across Snell in the taxi to the Olympic stadium, he told Halberg: ‘‘Peter will become an Olympic champion before you today, Murray’’.
Belgium’s Roger Moens was the hot-favourite to win gold in the 800m – and the world recordholder seemed poised to do that when he led the field in the home straight. But Moens, who graduated in criminology, didn’t spy Snell stealing the gold as he snuck up on the inside to pip his rival at the tape.
Crowds flocked to see Snell race in New Zealand following his breakthrough win. The idolatry matched that of All Black superstar Colin Meads.
He was spurred on by a packed-out Cooks Gardens crowd
in Wanganui in February 1962 when he set a world mile record and then again as he broke the world marks for the 880 yards and
800m at Christchurch’s Lancaster Park.
At the height of his prowess in Tokyo, Snell retained his 800m gold and strode to victory in the
1500m, with fellow New Zealander John Davies claiming bronze.
‘‘Snell at half-power could look ponderous, but at full stride he was a thing of potent beauty. It was like a jet taking off,’’ Runner’s World magazine wrote.
Snell retired from athletics aged just 26 and after a brief stint working for a tobacco company, turned his focus to studying science and medicine.
After gaining a PhD in Sports Medicine at Washington State University, he took up a postdoctoral fellowship in Dallas.
He was an inaugural inductee of the International ScholarAthlete
Hall of Fame at the University of Rhode Island in 1999 – one of the things he enjoyed most of all, noted New Zealand sports historian Ron Palenski said.
‘‘His running in his late teens and early 20s had taken over his life and he felt he would only be remembered as a runner – he wanted to be remembered for something else.’’
He was – but his running will never be forgotten.