The Superman of NZ athletics
Sir Peter Snell
athlete b December 17, 1938 d December 12, 2019
Peter Snell was so unfancied in the final of the 800m at the 1960 Rome Olympics that by, his own admission, ‘‘finishing last would have been a success’’. His best time at 880 yards was nearly four seconds slower than the metric world record of the favourite, Roger Moens of Belgium.
Yet the unassuming Snell took the gold medal, outsprinting Moens to the line. It was the start of his domination of middledistance events.
In 1964 he won the 800m and 1500m golds at the Tokyo Olympics, a double that had last been achieved in 1920 and has not been matched since.
When Snell, who has died aged 80, retired in 1965, he held five world records.
It was quite a transformation for the boy who, at Mt Albert Grammar, struggled to finish third over the mile and half-mile, well behind two of the school’s top juniors. ‘‘So much for natural talent,’’ he mused in No Bugles, No Drums, his 1965 autobiography with Garth Gilmour. ‘‘My reaction to these quick and overwhelming defeats was to conclude . . . I had better stick to tennis.’’
Things improved dramatically when Snell hooked up with master coach Arthur Lydiard early in 1958. He joined Lydiard’s group comprising world-class runners such as Murray Halberg, Bill Baillie, Barry Magee and Ray Puckett, and thrived on the Lydiard regime combining high mileage followed by punishing hill sessions and fine-tuned with precision speedwork.
Snell’s appetite for hard training was severely tested, and he recalls his first Waiatarua run – a ‘‘soul-searing 22-miler’’ through the Waitakere Ranges that left him in tears with legs too sore to walk.
This gave Snell the endurance in Rome to survive four rounds of heats in three days. As Lydiard explained: ‘‘Snell was basically the slowest runner in the field, but he had the stamina to carry him through the heats and then sprint the last 100m. His rivals were by then too tired to use their superior speed.’’
During his final preparations in Italy, Snell was suffering from a stomach upset. When he was running fast 200m intervals, he told Lydiard: ‘‘If I do another one, I will vomit.’’ Lydiard promptly replied: ‘‘Go ahead. Do another and then vomit.’’ Snell ran another half-lap and was promptly sick.
Lydiard’s ruthlessness paid off, but Snell was so surprised by his victory in the 800m that he did not know what to do to mark his triumph. Instead of cavorting round the track and celebrating with the spectators, he waited to cheer Halberg to victory in the 5000m.
As the pair travelled to the stadium with Lydiard in a taxi, their confident coach had leaned across and said: ‘‘Peter will become an Olympic champion today shortly before you, Murray.’’
In the hectic years that followed, Snell picked up world records over 800m, 880 yards, 1000m, the mile and the 4 x mile relay with Gary Philpott, Halberg and Magee.
His time for the 800m, which would have won the Beijing Olympics in 2008, remains the New Zealand record, and is still the fastest time ever run on grass.
But it was at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that Snell’s mesmerising talents coalesced into the aura of invincibility that saw him win two gold medals in four days.
Running easily within himself, Snell won the 800m. In the 1500m final, he was boxed in with only 500m left to run, and seventh out of eight just 300m out, yet still sprinted to gold. Former New Zealand
Olympic Committee chairman John Davies, who died from cancer in July 2003, took the bronze.
In Arthur’s Boys, Joseph Romanos’ story of Lydiard’s legacy, Davies recalled: ‘‘All of us were sprinting as fast as we could, yet none of us could stay with Peter. We were helpless. My chief memory down the final straight is of Peter’s huge legs ripping great chunks of cinders out of the track with his powerful stride.’’
One German journalist was moved to shout to a Kiwi reporter: ‘‘This is not a man – this is a god!’’ The irascible Australian Percy Cerutty, coach of world mile record-holder Herb Elliott, is said to have growled: ‘‘Snell should be reported to the stewards for not trying.’’
Peter George Snell was born in Opunake, to George, an electrical engineer and keen golfer, and Margaret, a homemaker and keen tennis player. The young Peter was good enough at tennis to enter the Australian and New Zealand junior championships.
He retired from racing in 1965, after a series of unexpected defeats in the United States. ‘‘We weren’t paid to run in those days, and I really felt I’d achieved all I could in my sport. I’d run out of goals,’’ he said.
He found new goals in his move to the US, earning a bachelor of science at the University of California before going on to study for his doctorate in the physiology of human exercise at Washington State University.
He was later based in Dallas as an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas, away from the expectations and pressures heaped on him in New Zealand. He told the Listener that he preferred the relative anonymity of living in the US, saying: ‘‘If I were still living in New Zealand, I would be tending to think that I deserved to be given things, or treated differently, or whatever.’’
He stayed fit, winning the US orienteering championships in the 65-and-over category in 2003, and as late as 2017 he competed at table tennis in world masters’ series. However, he was diagnosed with heart problems in 2009, and a fortnight before his death had a health scare while driving, crashing into several parked cars.
His first marriage, to Sally Turner, was dissolved and he married Miki
Hervey in 1983. He is survived by Miki, and by daughters Amanda and Jacqui from his first marriage.
He was appointed MBE in 1962 and advanced to OBE three years later. In 2009 he became a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
He was a dual winner of the Halberg Award (1960 and 1964) and was named New Zealand athlete of the century in 2000.
Later that year, he helped found the Peter Snell Institute of Sport, aimed at identifying and developing rising talent. Lydiard was its patron.
Snell set the standard against which all future New Zealand middle-distance talent will be measured, but admitted few illusions about his abilities.
‘‘I was a better 800m runner than I was a miler,’’ he said. ‘‘I know the training I did and the effort I put into my races, and I could not truthfully say I didn’t explore my potential.’’ –