Sir Peter Snell, KNZM, OBE was a New Zealand middle-distance runner. He is the only Olympian to secure the double of 800 metres - 1500 metres at the same Olympic Games since 1920. He also won back to back Olympic golds in 800 metres in 1960 and 1964 and a total of three Olympic gold medals.
In 1962, Peter Snell set new world records in the 800m clocking 1:44.3, the 880-yard at 1:45.1 and the mile at 3:54.4, which he later improved to 3:54.1 in 1964. Snellwas a world record holder in the 800m (1962–68), the 1000m (1964–65), the mile (1962–65), and the 880 yd (1962–66) and, as a team member in the 4xOne mile relay (1961).
His Personal Best achievements: 800m: 1:44.3 with a world record at Christchurch in 1962; 880 yd: 1:45.1 with a world record at Christchurch in 1962; 1000m: 2:16.6 with a world record at Auckland in 1964; 1500m: 3:37.6 at Auckland in 1964; Mile: 3:54.1 with a world record at Auckland in 1964; 4xOne mile relay: 16.23.8 with a new world record with teammates, Murray Halberg, Gary Philpott and Barry Magee.
Birth and Early Career
Born Peter George Snellin Opunake, New Zealand on December 17, 1938, Snell moved with his parents to Waikato in 1949 where he attended Te Aroha College and became an all-around sportsman. He won several middle-distance running events in his hometown of Te Aroha.
Then, he attended Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland, where he took up a wide range of sports, including rugby, cricket, tennis, badminton, and golf. As a teenager, Snell excelled in tennis at the Auckland and New Zealand Junior Tennis Championships.
At 19, Snell was motivated to concentrate seriously on running by the comments of his future coach, Arthur Lydiard, “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.”His early career, featured New Zealand titles and records for 880 yards and the mile, despite being an unusually large and powerful man by typical middle-distance runner standards. He stood 1.79m and weighed 80 kg.
Olympic Gold of 800m and World Records
Snell arrived at the Rome 1960 Summer Olympic Games as a relatively little-known middle-distance runner. However, he attracted attention by defeating 800m world record holder Roger Moens of Belgium in the semifinals.
Moens had not extended himself, so he remained the favourite. In the final, Moens took the lead 100m from the finish and appeared headed for victory. But in the homestretch, Snell charged ahead on the inside and crossed the finish line with his eyes closed.
When he discovered that he had won the gold, Snell was so stunned that he did not take a victory lap. Snell came to international consideration with this first Olympic gold at Rome 1960, setting a new national record.
Snell lowered the world mile record by a tenth of a second at Cooks Gardens in Whanganui on January 27, 1962 and one week later set new world records for both the 800m and 880 yd at Christchurch. He then won the gold for 880 yards setting a new record along with the gold for the mile at the Perth 1962 Commonwealth Games. In all, Snell set five individual world records and joined fellow New Zealand athletes to set a new four by one mile relay record as well.
Snell’s former world records of 1:44.3 for 800m (February 3, 1962) and 2:16.6 for 1000m (November 12, 1964), remain the New Zealand national records. His 800m record remains the fastest ever run over that distance on a grass track, and is also the oldest national record recognized by the IAAF for a standard track event. His 800m record was also the Oceania continental area record for 56 years, until 2018.
Gold Double of 800m-1500min
Snell was particularly dominant at the Tokyo 1964 Olympics where he won the gold and set a new Olympic record in the 800m and won the gold in the 1500m. By winning the 800–1500 m double, he became the only male Olympian to achieve this feat at the Olympics since 1920. It was not even achieved by a male at an open global championship until 2005.
In the 800m Olympic final, finding himself boxed in against the rail with 250m to go, Snell dropped back to maneuver around the field before passing the leader, Kenyan Wilson Kiprugut, to win clocking 1:45.1 bested only by his own world record.
In the eight days leading up to the Olympic 1500m final, Snell had already run five races: the heats, semi-final and final of the 800m, in which he won gold and the heats and semi-final of the 1500m. The field for the 1500m was initially led by Michel Bernard of France. He fell back after 400m and for about 200m there was a lull. Then John Davies took the lead, with Snell behind him, moving between second and third place.
He was boxed in when the bell rang to signal the beginning of the last lap. This time, however, he simply raised his arm, and fortunately, John Whetton of Great Britain generously moved aside. Snell broke free from the pack and ran away from the field, on the backstretch Snell made his move, passing first Witold Baran of Poland and then Davies to take the lead. As he came to the last bend, and again at the top of the straight, Snell glanced back and saw that he was leading by a comfortable margin. He cruised to his second gold medal of the 1964 Games, eventually by 15m.
Snell’s time of 3:38.1 was 2.5 sec outside the world record held by the previous Olympic champion, Australian Herb Elliott. Following the race Elliott’s coach, Percy Cerutty, criticized Snell for not trying to ‘smash the world record’.
Snell’s team-mate Davies very nearly won the silver. He finished in the same time as Josef Odlozil, but the Czechoslovak was judged to be fractionally ahead of him. It was still a triumphant day for New Zealand – the first time two of its flags had been raised in an Olympic medal ceremony.
Career After Retirement
Snell was known for the three Olympic and two Commonwealth gold medals he won, and the several world records he set. His final track season in 1965 was characterized by a string of losses to such athletes as Olympic 1500m silver medalist Josef Odlozil, Olympic 800m silver medalist Bill Crothers, U.S. high schooler and future world record holder Jim Ryun, and the American Jim Grelle.
In 1965, Snell retired; his autobiography, “No Bugles, No Drums,” was published that year. Snell then moved to the United States of America in 1971 to further his education.
He remains the only man to have won the 800m and the 1500m at the same Olympic Games during the last 100 years. Three women have achieved this double since 1500m was added to the Olympic program in 1972: Tatyana Kazankina of the Soviet Union at Montreal 1976, Svetlana Masterkova of Russia at Atlanta 1996, and Great Britain’s Kelly Holmes at Athens 2004.
Adopting a new sport, Snell became an active orienteer and won his category, men aged 65 and older, in the 2003 United States Orienteering Championship. Snell also became a competitive table tennis player including competing in Texas state and U.S. Championship events and also the 2017 World Masters Games in Auckland.
Snell died at his home in Dallas, Texas, United States on December 12, 2019, just five days short of turning 81. The cause was heart failure. The passing of the athletics great took a heavy toll on Miki, his wife, married for 36 long years. Asked for her favourite memories of their marriage, Miki recalled their shared love of orienteering, which they competed in for 20 years.
She said, “We liked to travel. We travelled all over the world. He was the best person to travel with. He never whined and he was just a pleasure to travel with. You have roadblocks and things that come up when you are in an unfamiliar place but he was just cool with it, he was just wonderful.”
The active couple also competed at Masters level in table tennis and played golf regularly, among many hobbies. “We did see and do so many things,” said Miki. “We loved our home, we had a beautiful garden that we both enjoyed, and he loved his work. He never had a day where he said ‘I don’t want to go to work today.’ He loved what he did for work and he worked until he was 75 when he retired.”
Doctorate in Physiology
Snell quit running competitively at 29, but after a stint in sales, advertising and endorsing products, he still felt drawn to athletics. He didn’t want to participate professionally in sports anymore, but he longed to learn more about human physiology and the ways athletic sport and health interrelate.
At 34, he moved to the United States and enrolled at the University of California, Davis as a freshman. He notes that in the United States, it was reasonable for a man to start an education and a new career later in life, whereas had he stayed in New Zealand, he probably would have been expected to settle down, maybe do a little coaching. He could have enjoyed a nice retirement in New Zealand simply resting on his laurels.
A member of the American College of Sports Medicine, he gained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Human Performance from the University of California, Davis, and then Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in Exercise Physiology from the Washington State University. He joined University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas as a Research Fellow in 1981. He was Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine and also Director of their Human Performance Center.
He authored or co-authored 60 published papers on exercise-related research, and wrote a book called “Use it or Lose it: Be Fit, Live Well,” in which he shares well-researched secrets to successful aging. He researched on amazing things about the capabilities of the human body. But this was a man who thrived on intensity. At 34, the guy made famous for his strong finish had barely started his race.
While in medical school, he actually began to understand his coach, the famous Arthur Lydiard’s methods - tons of endurance training built up certain muscle fibers and stamina that allowed him to finish stronger than any other runner of the era. And he acquired an understanding of exercise’s role in maintaining stamina, strength and good health for the long haul, wisdom that would shape his future.
He learned that exercise is an effective intervention for metabolic, hormonal and heart problems and that it helped kids recovering from leukemia as well as HIV-positive patients, and, most importantly, Peter Snell shared, it improves the overall quality of life.
Through regular exercise, we preserve muscle mass, explained Dr. Snell. “It is that loss of muscle mass that makes us frail as we age.” And regular exercise doesn’t just protect the body, he says, but also boosts brainpower.
Professor Snell said: “We have long felt that exercise is neuro-protective, improving memory and mood. Today imaging is allowing those theories to be proved. There are even studies showing that women who exercise have less incidence of breast cancer, that exercise protects tumor-suppressing genes. Exercise does a whole lot of stuff drugs do, without the side effects.”
Honours and Awards
Snell had a relatively short career as a world-famous international sportsman, 1960–1965, yet achieved so much that he was voted New Zealand’s “Sports Champion of the 20th Century” in 2000 and was one of 24 inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics Federations ‘Hall of Fame’ named in 2012.
Following his success at the Perth Commonwealth Games in 1962, Snell was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services in the field of athletics in the 1962 Queen’s Birthday Honours. In 1965, he was elevated to Officer of the same order (OBE) in the 1965 New Year Honours list.
Snell was honored in 1999 as an Inaugural Inductee, International Scholar, into the Athlete Hall of Fame, University of Rhode Island. In 2001, Macleans College in Auckland created ‘Snell House’ as part of its “whanau house” system. The ‘Peter Snell Youth Village,’ on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, in North Auckland, New Zealand, is also named after him. They run holiday camps for young people.
‘Snell Drive,’ in the Hamilton suburb of Chartwell, is named in Snell’s honour. ‘Peter Snell Street’ is a street in the Bay of Plenty town of Whakatane. In the 2002 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to sport, and in 2009, he accepted redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (KNZM).
Snell was featured on a series of commemorative postage stamps issued in 2004 to commemorate the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. The two-dollar stamp issued by New Zealand Post features a stylized photo of Snell snapping the tape at the finish line of the 800m at the Rome 1960 Olympics.
He was selected by Track and Field News’ as their “Athlete of the 1960s” and was pictured on the cover of the December 1969 issue. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate (DSc) by Massey University in recognition of his work as an exercise physiologist.
A larger than life-size bronze statue of Peter Snell was erected in his hometown of Opunake, Taranaki, and was unveiled on May 19, 2007. The statue is based on a photo of Snell crossing the finish line in a historic race in 1962. A similar bronze statue of Snell was unveiled in Cook’s Gardens on August 15, 2009 to commemorate his athletic achievements.
Interviewed by the Wanganui Chronicle after the unveiling, Snell said he was internationally known as a miler, but he had never reached his potential over the mile and the 800m was probably his best distance. He said his greatest effort was the world 800m/880 yard double record set on Lancaster Park a few days after his new mile record, with an 800m time that would have won the gold medal 46 years later at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Snell was inducted into the Taranaki Sports Hall of Fame at the Taranaki Sports Awards 2021.
(The author is an Associate Professor, International Scholar, winner of Presidential Awards and multiple National Accolades for Academic pursuits. He possesses a PhD, MPhil and double MSc. His email is [email protected])