Snell: Look to science, not chance, for champions

New Zealand's "chance" approach to identifying talent is hindering its goal of be coming a world-class sporting nation, says Peter Snell, New Zealand's greatest athlete, clearly well qualified to pass judgement.

Dr Snell, an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, wants New Zealand sports agencies to take a more scientific, innovative approach if it is serious about competing with the big nations at Olympic level.

"Yes, to be quite frank, we do [leave it to chance]," Snell says at a testing clinic for talented secondary school students at Massey University's Albany campus.

"For most activities, not only in sport, there will be competitions, talent spotters may come along, and they choose what appear to be the best people. In my opinion, they might not be getting the best people and there are other characteristics that may be more important than straight-out performance."

The Peter Snell Institute of Sport has a primary focus on talent spotting using a number of physiological strength, speed and agility tests. But Snell, once told by his school headmaster that, academically, he didn't "have it" before going on to get a PhD at a respected American university, says the ability to recognise qualities like desire, ability to "read" a game and flair were just as important.

There are simple psyche tests that can measure certain aspects of desire, such as posing multi-choice questions along the lines of: Would you rather star in the school play or have a weekend with your mates at the beach?

"In the conquest of Everest the story, as I heard it, was that George Lowe was probably a better technical climber than Hillary but Ed was the one picked to do the final assault because he was the one that had the desire." Snell's own desire was never in question.

Only Snell, his coach Arthur Lydiard and fellow Olympian Murray Halberg truly believed Snell would win the 800m at Rome 1960, when he was just 21. When he retired after winning the 800m-1500m double at Tokyo four years later, he left a legacy for others like John Walker and, now, Nick Willis to follow.

Snell met Willis years ago when Willis' Michigan track team was competing at a Minneapolis university where Snell was guest-speaking. "We had a good talk afterwards. He's a great guy." The Commonwealth Games doesn't register in America, so it took some time before Snell managed to see the black singlet return to track glory in Melbourne.

"Now I'm getting a little more computer savvy, I downloaded some stuff and finally got to see the race. Nick is doing real well," Snell says, his phrasing betraying the fact he is now a long-time resident of Dallas, Texas. "I'm very proud of him for hanging in there." While Willis needs to trim some time off his personal best (3m 32.17s) to advance from his world No 14 ranking to being consistently competitive at world and Olympic level, Snell says the boundaries of human capability are close to being reached in athletics - particularly from the middle-distances down.

"Performances cannot just be looked at as a curve you extrapolate forever," Snell said. "We are levelling off in our ability. I don't think we'll see the mile record, the 1500m or even 800m improve much at all.

"Of course we've been saying that for years but there are now good, sound physiological reasons why our aerobic capacity for example - an important facet of miling - has reached its structural limitations."

It's the reason that athletes born at high altitude have such an edge, Snell reasons. Because hearts were so well trained, now it is the lungs that are struggling to keep up. But athletes living at high altitude, such as the Kenyans, have superior lung-diffusing capacity.

It's why he'd be reluctant to see the IAAF ban the use of hypoxic altitude training systems that mimic the effect of training at altitude, all from the comfort of sea level or thereabouts. Use of the systems is widespread and came under the scrutiny of the World Anti-Doping Acency (WADA) this year.

While Snell acknowledges it is sad in some respects that such measures need to be taken, it would probably create more even competition.

He says while the incentive was similar, this training needs to be differentiated from drugs use, however. "I can see how it would be very tempting if you were just below the top echelon," Snell says.

"The incentives weren't the same in my day - it was all for the glory - but now you can set yourself up very nicely if you're at the top of your sport. If a doctor comes to you and says 'we've got this new thing here they can't screen you for...' well, I can see how it happens."

Snell was particularly discouraged by the results of a question put to American kids recently. "It said 'if you could take a drug that would make you Olympic champion but you'd be dead in five years, would you do it?' The number that said they would do it was astonishing."

Proof that things weren't only different in Snell's day, but better.