WELLINGTON, Dec 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – New Zealand running great Peter Snell,
a triple Olympic gold medallist, has died at the age of 80, sports historian
Ron Palenski said on Saturday.
Palenski, a close friend, said Snell’s wife Miki had phoned him from their
home in Dallas to tell him of the death.
The couple were preparing to go shopping when “Peter nodded off, as is not
unusual for him. But he didn’t wake up,” Palenski said.
Snell, a protege of famed coach Arthur Lydiard, was the most dominant
middle-distance runner of his era.
He won gold in the only three Olympic events he contested — the 800 metres
at Rome in 1960 and the 800m and 1500m in Tokyo four years later — set world
records for the mile and 800m and also won dual gold at the 1962 Commonwealth
Games in Perth.
He was the first male athlete to win the 800m-1500m double at an Olympics
since 1920, a feat that has not been achieved by any male since.
Shell was voted New Zealand’s “Sports Champion of the Century” and was one
of 24 inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics
Federations Hall Of Fame.
“He is probably the greatest athlete New Zealand has had,” Palenski told
AFP.
Snell had suffered heart problems for a few years and was unable to attend
a recent dinner in Monaco for mile world record holders.
“I even tried to go against my heart failure doctor’s advice and showed up
at the airport for my flight,” he said in a message to the galaxy of mile
stars who attended.
“I felt that it was too risky to board an eight-hour flight given how
poorly I was feeling at the time.”
After a relatively short athletics career, Snell retired in 1965 and moved
to the United States where he gained a Bachelor of Science in human
performance from the University of California, Davis, and then a PhD in
exercise physiology from Washington State University.