Peter Snell

Peter Snell
Full name	Peter George Snell
nation	New Zealand
birthday	December 17, 1938
place of birth	Opunake ,  New Zealand
size	179 cm
Weight	80 kg
date of death	December 12, 2019
Place of death	Dallas ,  United States
Career
discipline	Middle distance run
Best performance	1: 44.3 min ( 800 m ) 3: 37.6 min ( 1500 m )
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 0 × 0 × Commonwealth Games 2 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Rome 1960 800 m gold Tokyo 1964 800 m gold Tokyo 1964 1500 m  Commonwealth Games gold Perth 1962 880 yards gold Perth 1962 1 mile

Sir Peter George Snell , KNZM , MBE (born December 17, 1938 in Opunake , New Zealand , † December 12, 2019 in Dallas , Texas , United States ) was a New Zealand athlete .

Statue of Peter Snell (Photo: 2012)

Snell was a versatile athlete in his youth who was successful in rugby , cricket , tennis (participant in New Zealand's youth championships), badminton and golf . At 19 he concentrated on athletics and just three years later he won the gold medal in the 800-meter run at the 1960 Olympic Games . In 1964 he won both the 800 meters and the 1,500 meter run, which until then only Albert Hill had achieved at the 1920 Olympic Games . In 1962 he ran a world record over a mile and in the 800-meter run within a week . In addition to these successes, he also won the British Empire and Commonwealth Games twice . Due to the periodization of Lydiard he reached twice a year each for a relatively short, stable and predictable time top form and used this skillfully for major victories and records. After his sports career, Peter Snell became a sports physician. Snell's successes are largely due to the training methods of the running coach Arthur Lydiard .

In July 1965, at the age of 26, he surprisingly ended his competitive sports career. Snell had for a tobacco company worked , had been released but mostly for training and competition. In 1971 he moved to the United States, studied human performance (human performance) at the University of California, Davis (BS) and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in exercise physiology ( exercise physiology ) at Washington State University. He was hired by the Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1981 and was soon promoted to associate professor and director of the Human Performance Center .

In 2003 Snell won the American orienteering championships in the 65+ class . Most recently, Snell worked as an exercise physiologist in Texas. His specialty was the treatment of circulatory and heart problems. He often used exercise - particularly jogging - as a method of treatment .

In 2009 he was ennobled. Sir Peter was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame in 2012. Snell died in December 2019, a few days before his 81st birthday.

World records and world bests

• 4 × 1 mile (relay), 16: 23.8 min
• 1 mile, 3: 54.4 min
• 1 mile, 3: 54.1 min
• 800 m, 1: 44.3 min
• 880 yards, 1: 45.1 min
• 880 yards (hall), 1: 49.9 min
• 1000 m, 2: 16.6 min
• 1000 yards (hall), 2:06 min

Web links

• Peter Snell in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Olympic legend died at the age of 80. Report on t-online.de , December 13, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2019.
2. ↑ James McOnle: Obituary: Sir Peter Snell, the inscrutable genius of middle distance running. In: The Spinoff , December 14, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2019.
3. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997). In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
4. ↑ http://www.baoc.org/results/r03/r030914.html