Remembering how Snell tore up the Tokyo track for historic Olympic double

“We were helpless. My chief memory down the final straight is of Peter’s huge legs ripping great chunks of cinders out of the track with his powerful stride.”

By Len Johnson for World Athletics

On October 21, 1964, nine men lined up for the Tokyo Olympic 1500m final. Three minutes and 38.1...

‘The greatest athlete NZ has had’: Famed Olympian Sir Peter Snell has died

"He won three Olympic gold medals, two Commonwealth Games gold medals and broke seven world records. He was the best conditioned athlete of his time."

By NZ Herald

Famed New Zealand Olympic distance runner Sir Peter Snell has died, age 80.

Sports historian and friend Ron Palenski confirmed...

The Mile centerpiece for the inaugural Sir Peter Snell International Meet

"We want to reinstate the One Mile Championship name and make this event an annual sanctioned fixture at Cooks Gardens."

By Iain Hyndman, Whanganui Chronicle

The athletics fraternity will finally get to celebrate Whanganui, Sir Peter Snell, Cooks Gardens and what all three bring to the global...

Peter Snell: Titan of the track

“My mental approach was not focusing on the individuals I couldn’t control, but focus on myself. It normally worked out all right.”

By Cameron Tucker, Athletics Weekly

Last year was a record-breaking one in sport for New Zealand. The island nation, renowned for its haka-dancing rugby team,...

Sir Peter Snell honored by US Sports Academy with Distinguished Service Award

Former Mile world record holder and 3-time Olympic champion recognized for outstanding contributions to national or international sport through education, research or service.

From Stuff

Sir Peter Snell has been honoured by the United States Sports Academy with a Distinguished Service Award...

The Legacy of New Zealand’s Milers

Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell, and John Walker paved the way for future Kiwi stars like Nick Willis.

By Roger Robinson, Running Times

When Nick Willis was a boy in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, he used to watch videos of Kiwis Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell, and John Walker winning Olympic 1500m gold...

Miler Jim Ryun’s 50-year-old upset of Peter Snell still a magic moment in history

In an age when track & field was more popular in the U.S. than the NBA, NHL and what is now NASCAR, no one was a bigger star than high schooler Ryun

By Scott M. Reid, The Orange County Register

In early June 1965, Jim Ryun, an 18-year-old senior at Wichita’s East High School, and his coach...

Mile Moment of the Month: 50 years ago Peter Snell sets rare world record

“The first half Mile was, I felt, too fast, but I was carried along by the whole atmosphere and excitement... I struggled along to the three-quarter mark, and from then on I was hanging on desperately.”

By Bring Back the Mile

Like October, which also has few top racing opportunities, the...

Barcelona Press Points: Mile and Olympic Legends Kip Keino and Peter Snell

BARCELONA, Spain – New Zealand’s three-time Olympic middle-distance champion Peter Snell and Kip Keino, Kenya’s 1968 and 1972 Olympic 1500m and 3000m Steeplechase champion, respectively, appeared at the press point at the IAAF Centenary Gala in Barcelona. These were some of the highlights.

...

Peter Snell to be inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame

By IAAF

MONTE-CARLO - New Zealand’s three-time Olympic champion and multiple World record breaker Peter Snell is the latest athletics legend to be named as one of the 24 inaugural Members of the IAAF Hall of Fame which has been created to mark the year of the IAAF Centenary.

The announcement...

Peter Snell: Gentleman, Athlete, Scholar

Renowned coach Arthur Lydiard's formula for distance running success: preparation, patience and performance

By Jim Ferstle for Running Times

To track fans, Peter Snell is a legendary triple Olympic gold medalist, who set the Mile world record twice. To his native New Zealanders, he's Sir...

Peter Snell: Run of a lifetime 50 years on

"The crowd started singing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' and the place was in chaos, with people running all over the show."

By Grant Chapman, New Zealand Herald

For Sir Murray Halberg, it was a night tinged with death and sadness. For Peter Snell, it was the moment he realized he wasn't...

Peter Snell Interview

There were other very nice moments such as when I was trying to run a sub-4 minute Mile and ended up breaking the World Record!

By Gary Cohen

Peter Snell of New Zealand won the gold medal in the 1960 Olympic 800 meter run in Rome, Italy by 0.07 seconds, clockng 1:46.48. Four years later in...

An Exclusive Club

Forty years after Roger Bannister broke four minutes, the brotherhood of Mile record holders gathered to honor their grand obsession

By Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated

Never join someone who eclipses you. Align yourself with one who increases your luster. The man who puts you in the shade...

Fast Teenagers in Grown-Up Time

With tactical cunning and a brilliant burst of speed, 18-year-old Jim Ryun beat the great Peter Snell in a U.S. record 3:55.3 Mile

By Gwilym S. Brown, Sports Illustrated

In San Diego one day last week an 18-year-old boy and a former football linebacker sat down to map out the strategy the boy...

Snell’s Tortured Race to a Record Mile

Although he was, in his own words, 'desperate and struggling,' New Zealand's three-gold-medal Olympian beat his own mark and completely routed the world's second and third best Milers

By Sports Illustrated

"The first half Mile was, I felt, too fast," said Peter Snell, "but I was carried along...

Meet The World’s Best Runner

In the southern reaches of faraway New Zealand young Peter Snell broke the world half-mile and 800 meter records last Saturday just a week after he had run history's fastest Mile

By Leslie Hobbs, Sports Illustrated

In the stretch of the Olympic 800 meter finals in Rome last year the highly...

A ‘Novice Miler’ Runs the Fastest Mile Ever

New Zealand's burly Peter Snell, starting in one of the few Mile races of his young career, took the lead with 340 yards to go, sprinted away from the field to better Herb Elliott's classic mark by a tenth of a second: "I think I can improve on the Mile time a little."

By Leslie Hobbs, Sports...