Was Peter Snell really 5ft10 and 180 pounds?

Gramps wrote:

crumpet wrote:

I had the great fortune to meet him.

I blubbered like a letsrun fanboy

Did he give you a bite of his vegemite sandwich?

NZ is actually a country on its own

Mope Dealer wrote:

I've got a picture of him training top less and he was actually slimmer then what people think.

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Well, that’s not gay.

Pure hetero right there wrote:

Mope Dealer wrote:

I've got a picture of him training top less and he was actually slimmer then what people think.

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Pics? I need to see that pic of Snell.

Democrats are such hypocrites wrote:

Yes, let’s be civil. Oh wait ...

sky wrote:

Could be wrong, but I'm thinking #35 is actually a Belgium with the last name of Moen. First name Roger, maybe?

Moen was the the favorite to win the '60 800 meters in the Rome Olympics, but Snell nipped him at the tape.

That is not Roger Moens in the photo.

The Belgian runner in that photo from the Tokyo 800 semis wearing #35 is Jacques Pennewaert, who did the 400/800 double at both the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympiads.

Ackley wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

I actually went a looked at pictures and video and the answer is don't be ridiculous. He didn't even weigh 170 in those races. 165 tops.

180lb man : men's mid-d race :: caster semenya : women's 800. Giant among midgets.

Don't bother arguing unless you can actually bring back racing Snell and weigh him, with reliable witnesses on a verifiably accurate scale. Which you can't.

He doesn't look a ton bigger than the other guys in this photo, but some people just have more mass than typical.

https://www.si.com/longform/2016/greatest-olympic-photos/common/images/photos/1964_tokyo/1964_track_1.jpg

Wow!...those three dudes to the right are muscular! You just don't see that kind of muscularity with world class 800 guys these days - most of the top 800 dudes are built more like 5000 runners.

The Right Answer wrote:

The Belgian runner in that photo from the Tokyo 800 semis wearing #35 is Jacques Pennewaert, who did the 400/800 double at both the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympiads.

Wow!...that guy has got some pipes on him! ?

Ezekiel bread wrote:

Pure hetero right there wrote:

Pics? I need to see that pic of Snell.

I'm trying to remember which book it is in, originally I thought was in the Joesph Romanos "100 Top New Zealand Sports History Makers" which has Snell at #1, Ed Hilary at #2, Walker #5, Lovelock #6, Williams #9 (1952 LJ champ), Lydiard at #10, Halberg #12. I now have concluded that it is in the NZ Sports Person of Century book that came out around the same time c2000. The pic is in the first few pages marking Snell being named 'Halberg' (yes the NZ sportsperson of the year award is named after Sir Murray) Athlete of the Century for NZ (across all sports). The pic is of the Lydiard athletes training in the Auckland domain on a hot day shirtless, his legs are unheard of in size, just a freak, but his upper body is no different from Filip or Jakob Ingebrigtsen, when they are training shirtless. If I had to guess he would be 70-73kg. BTW, Lovelock was NZ sportsperson of the 1930s, Williams the 1950s and Walker the 1970s. Snell obviously won the 1960s. I cannot find the book at the moment but it is somewhere ;)

Mr D. UK if I can recall correctly, did you not argue to the crazy surgeon and pretend mathematician on here (a few years ago) that tight bends hindered Seb Coe's times? Was the track that day in 1962 not 385m/yards or something? Grass is a friction, and slows performance. I've never run anywhere near as fast on grass, but they were terrible tracks.

SaRchOOOoo wrote:

Deano, you can conclude whatever you wish.

We have great respect for Coe. SNELL.. was better. In fact, as Roger Moens said, "Peter Snell was... the best!"

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/this-is-your-life-peter-snell-2000

I respectfully disagree.

Moens would say that wouldn’t he; being a contemporary of Snell’s and narrowly beaten by him?

What other greats did Snell beat to win his Olympic titles? I appreciate that he was the best of his generation and can only beat those that were there, but he never faced the depth of competition Coe had to contend with; Ovett, Cram, Cruz, Walker, Scott, etc, all of whom were all time greats.

If you look at records, medals, longevity, pbs and ranking points, Coe has achieved slightly more. Even Walker has stated that Coe was the greatest middle distance runner ever.

I think Coe and Snell are head and shoulders above the other all time greats over 800 and 1500, but in my opinion and I would suggest the majority of those in the sport across the eras and from around the world, Coe just has the edge.

I can see how Snell might just be above Coe on the all time 800 list, but Coe’s achievements over the longer distance I think clinches it

But of course you’re entitled to your opinion.

Armstronglivs wrote:

It is one of the truly great championship victories, and made even more so by the fact that it was his seventh race in nine days, that included an equally devastating defence of his 800m title.

Yes it is, the only man ever to win the 800 and 1500 double at an Olympics, but it was 6 races in 8 days, not 7 races.

To be fair to Moens, he was the world record holder in his era. To beat the then world record holder in the greatest championship, the Olympics, as Snell did, and then subsequently annihilate his record is no small thing. One other thing I will say in Snell's favour, is that there were no other "greats" in his era because he saw off all the competition, such was his dominance (like Elliot before him). Coe had to share the limelight in his era in part because he was less dominant over his rivals.

Comparisons between greats of different generations are interesting but in the end they can only be speculative because they never met, and to be fair to each they would have had to have grown up, trained and competed in the same eras, with the all the advantages and disadvantages that would entail. Perhaps the biggest difference between Snell and Coe was that the former competed in an amateur era whereas Coe had all the advantages of the professional athlete. To me, their greatness lies in what they achieved against the competition they faced. Measured in that way, both have bestrode the pinnacle of their sport. True colossi.

Deanouk wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

It is one of the truly great championship victories, and made even more so by the fact that it was his seventh race in nine days, that included an equally devastating defence of his 800m title.

Yes it is, the only man ever to win the 800 and 1500 double at an Olympics, but it was 6 races in 8 days, not 7 races.

You might be right. I thought he ran two heats in the 800m (as well as a semi and a final) but my memory may not be serving me correctly. And on the other point, I think someone in the mists of antiquity (Albert Hill in 1920) had previously accomplished the double.

The return of Mope Dealer, yes the real one, he lives wrote:

Mr D. UK if I can recall correctly, did you not argue to the crazy surgeon and pretend mathematician on here (a few years ago) that tight bends hindered Seb Coe's times? Was the track that day in 1962 not 385m/yards or something? Grass is a friction, and slows performance. I've never run anywhere near as fast on grass, but they were terrible tracks.

No, Snell ran his 800m WR on a 440yd grass track, not a 385 yd track ..... that was the mile record in Wanganui a week before ... where the 5 bends came from.

I never said that Coe's times were hindered by tight bends. The crazy doctor tried to claim that Oslo in the 70's and 80's had tighter bends and longer straights than what is now the standard configuration for IAAF meets, which meant that times set on such tracks were illegal and enhanced. I told him this was nonsense, that they were still within legal limits for record purposes, and that shorter, tighter bends would,if anything, slow times down; and I'm talking a couple of tenths perhaps for an 800m. Certainly it was a great disadvantage for 200 and 400m runners. I was basically making a counter argument to his nonsense.

Snell said at the time in an interview that he found the grass track 'perfect' and that it was faster than any cinder one.

This video shows that the start and finish were on the same line, thus proving it was a 440yd track. It also has an interview with Snell after the race (at around 10mins on video) in which you can just about ascertain (amongst the french translation on top) his comments about the grass track being 'perfect'.

The shorter track was the grass track at Cooks Gardens in Wanganui, where he set his mile record a week earlier. I raced on it myself as a schoolboy athlete a few years later, before they tore it up and replaced it with a cycling track. Sacre bleu!

True, but cinders must often have been terrible to run on - especially the way lane one would be torn up by constant use. It's amazing what Bob Hayes accomplished in Tokyo on cinders, running in a rain-soaked lane one. Grass - which I and my contemporaries often ran on - could be better but probably nothing like the best synthetic tracks today.

I get what you're saying, and believe me I do have the highest respect for Snell's achievements, but sometimes fate plays a part in when an athlete is at a peak and who the competition is. Had Snell's career occurred alongside Elliott's and Ryun's, in the same way Coe, Ovett and Cram did, then maybe he wouldn't have had everything his own way! Most of Snell's peers were European, US or from the Commonwealth. There were certainly more nations competing at the highest level 20 years later. Snell's domination from 60 -64, and he did have a couple of shallow seasons amongst those, did not, I believe, prevent other talent from coming through, there just didn't happen to be any other greats in this period. For Coe to achieve at least as much as Snell over both events when the competition was more in depth, is probably more impressive in my opinion. At his best, in 79 and 81, he was as dominant as Snell had been in 62 and 64.

Yes Snell competed in a purely amateur era, but then Coe went into the sport when it was amateur, and it didn't really become professional until 1982, when athletes were allowed trust funds; so Coe was an amateur for at least half his career, and always had a job or was studying throughout his athletic career, apart from 1980.

I do think it's a shame Snell didn't or wasn't able to continue for a few more years, and provide some competition for Ryun, as he was surely capable of much faster times in the longer distance; I'd say around 3:33/3:34 and 3:50/3:51.

I'd also probably rank him #2 all time at 800m above Kipketer, just behind Rudisha, on account of his 2 Olympic titles.

I quite acknowledge why you might rank Coe higher than Snell. However, Snell has an edge in respect of his major victories; he accomplished the 800-1500 double, which Coe was unable to do - Snell never lost a championship race and always beat his rivals when challenged (such as Beattie, Burleson and Grelle at Modesto and Compton, in Snell's off-season in '63). I don't think there has been a better clutch racer than Snell. In one way I also rank Snell above Rudisha in that his versatility extended to the longer distance whereas Rudisha remains a specialist. John Walker - no slouch - always ranked Snell above himself. And if one is tempted to dismiss the level of competition that Snell sometimes faced we might remember that at Tokyo a certain Kip Keino wasn't good enough to make the 1500 final that Snell won. I also agree that Snell probably never got close to fulfilling his potential over the 1500/mile.