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As a teenager I had no idea that I had the potential to win an Olympic gold medal and my athletic career developed only by lucky circumstances

Peter Snell

Peter Snell was a natural athlete. He excelled at rugby, tennis, cricket and golf among other sports. It just so happens that one day, coach Arthur Lydiard spotted the 19-year-old Snell run an 880-yard handicap race in 1957. Lydiard was impressed by Snell‘s natural speed and convinced Snell to drop his other sports and pursue track. The rest we shall say is history.

Snell’s impressive resume includes all of the following:

• 800m gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympic games
• 880y and Mile gold medals at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth games
• 800m and 1500m gold medals at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics games – a feat that has not been replicated since.
• World Records in the 800m, 880y, 1000m, Mile and 4 x 1 Mile relay
• Voted New Zealand’s Sports Champion of the (20th) Century

There is a lot to say about Peter Snell. But here are just two tidbits about the 1960 Olympics and his 800m world record.

Snell at the 1960 Rome Olympics

Snell shocked the world by winning the 800m gold at the 1960 Rome Olympic games. He arrived at the games with an 800m PB of 1:49.2. And amazingly he ran 1:48.1 in the heats, 1:48.8 in the quarter-finals, 1:47.2 in the semi-finals and 1:46.5 (Olympic Record) in the final. That’s four word-class 800m races in three days with three new personal bests. Incredible.

This level of achievement surely had much to do with all the thorough training he was doing with Lydiard. Up to 100-mile weeks. Lots of Lydiard Hill training. And plenty of fine-tuning at the track. Year after year after year.

Let’s watch the Olympic final:

Peter Snell’s 800m World Record

Snell set the 800m world record of 1:44.3 en route to an 880y world record of 1:45.1 in 1962. There are two specific elements to the record that are unlikely to be replicated by any modern 800m runner.

First, about four months before the record attempt, Snell ran a marathon! The Owairaka Marathon. Snell managed to stay with the leaders in a high-level field. He was fourth at 20 miles. But he was reduced to a walk half-a-mile later. At 24 miles, he sat down. He managed to drag himself to the finish in 2:41.

Snell‘s marathon was not an extraordinary performance by any means. But when is the last time you heard of an 800m runner completing a marathon as part of his regular training. This is classic Arthur Lydiard.

As a fun side story, later that day after the Marathon, Snell decided to play a Cricket match with friends. When he started to lose his vision and coordination, he decided to call it a day. His glycogen and blood sugar levels were completely depleted!

Second, Snell set the record on a grass track. You heard right, on a grass track! I can only imagine what kind of time he would have produced on a modern synthetic track. In this post, I mention how cinder tracks are estimated to be 1.5% slower than modern tracks. I imagine a grass track is at a similar disadvantage, if not more.

Snell‘s record still stands today as the fastest 800m ever on a grass track. Plus it is also the New Zealand national record for 800m, the oldest IAAF national record for a standard track and field event.

Let’s watch some footage of the record

A Short Biopic on Peter Snell

I love old videos. Here is a classic video about Peter Snell. The video is from 1964. You can see how different things were in 1960s New Zealand. There are plenty of great clips with Snell running and talking about his training. The footage of the 1960 Olympics above is from this video