this has nothing to do with his merits but acceptability for ratification
the hand times were 2 of 1'41.6 & one of 1'41.7
i have already shown in rono's 13'06.20 auto that hand-timing can be way out - in his race the 3 watches all showed 13'05.4 !!!
that is 0.8s discrepancy between auto/HT !!!
there are also other examples of huge discrepancies :
- ron in his epic 10k wr ( page 94 ) :
27:39.4 (27:39.0 - 27:39.4 - 27:39.6, electronic: 27:39.89) !!!
one watch is 0.89s out from auto-time !!!
- this one is very relevant as it 800 & 1y before coe's run : on page 267 :
1:54.9 Nadezhda Olizarenko (URS) Moskva 12.06.1980
this was warm-up meet for games :
Olizarenko 1:54.9 (submitted by the Soviet Federation as 1:54.9 and
ratified by the IAAF accordingly, the 3 hand held watches registered: 1:54.5 - 1:54.6 - 1:54.7, electronic:
1:54.85)
the 3 HTs are considerably faster than auto-time ( only the slowest one is acceptable ) with one being 0.35s faster than auto-time !!!
2 of the 3 hand-times in that race were nonsense
just this last example shows hand-times for 800 cannot be relied on as an accurate substitute for the auto-time which was lacking in coe's run
you have a point, considering that his time was matched many times after : Ryun, doubell & wottle
the main issue is that snell ran 1'45.1y ( all 3 watches ) & 800 time taken was 1'44.3 !!!
800m: 1:44.3
(1:44.2 - 1:44.3 - 1:44.4)
that is a tortuous 0.8s slowing in 4.6+m !!!
Ryun went 1'44.9y but no 800 time taken but standard 0.6s conversion gave him tie
then we have further example :
on page 206
2:02.0y Judith Pollock (AUS) Stockholm 05.07.1967
(all 3 watches 2:02.0, 800m: 2:01.1)
that's a 0.9s difference when maths says 0.72 is expected !!!
my problem with snell's run is mostly with timing, albeit he ran it on a grass track, allegedly of 385y, which is 352.044m which woud be way illegal nowdays
( it has to be 400m obviously )
the other problem with grass is that you can roll-it so that it can end up virtually rock-hard ( likely hugely illegal for iaaf 65% energy return limit ) making the WACA pitch look like a dusty featherbed in bombay !!!