One Snell of a Secret

Peter Snell is a great Olympian and he's just been honoured on this hi-tech stamp. It shows his gold medal win in the 800 metres at the Rome Olympics. Snell dashes past Moens on the inside and with a flick of your wrist you see him break the tape. Peter Snell wins and sets a new Olympic record.

All that happened 40 years ago and last week's story told you about Peter's road to Rome. This week we begin on an Opunake road where Peter Snell the six-year old, wobbled on his bike.

Rewind

The year is 1944. What was happening way back then? These things might have. You decide.

True or false?

1. World War 11 has ended.

2. Britain agrees to buy all the meat New Zealand can export.

3. Road patrols begin on pedestrian crossings near schools.

4. The European wasp arrives in New Zealand hidden in some air cargo.

5. New Zealanders see their first helicopter. It's in Wellington onboard a visiting American ship.

Answers at the bottom of the page.

Where's Opunake?

Decide which town is Opunake on this map. You can check your choice here.

Before or after?

This week's story begins in Opunake in 1944. Decide with a classmate if this photo was taken before or after 1944.  Jot down some evidence and then check these photos from the 1940s to help you make up your mind.

• New Plymouth
• Wellington
• New Zealand family, 1940s

Word watch

The words below are all in this week's story. Decide if the best meaning is (a) or (b) and then check your answers as you read the story.

1. confession (a) something a person may say or write when they admit to being guilty (b) something admitted in church to a priest

2. apprentice (a) a business partner or (b) a person who is learning a trade

3. midwife (a) a person who is trained to assist a woman in childbirth or (b) a doctor that specialises in delivering babies

4. knocked about together (a) did things together or (b) had the odd bit of fisticuffs

5. fashioned (a) made (b) invented

6. energised (a) bulked up or (b) activated

7. humble (a) modest or (b) simple

8. adversary (a) best mate (b) opponent

9. to put things in perspective (a) to compare with similar happenings or (b) to view things clearly

10. subconsciously (a) doing something without really thinking about it or (b) concentrating carefully

Answers at the bottom of the page.

Read all about it

Read the amazing confession in the first part of this week's story.

Listed below are some of the sensational headlines that appeared in the newspaper when Snell won his first gold medal. Murray Halberg from New Zealand won another gold medal an hour later.

PRAISE, ACCLAIM FOR OLYMPIC WINS

Halberg "Fantastic"

Snell "Wonderful"

The greatest day in New Zealand athletics

Dazzling Achievements of Halberg and Snell

Success of N.Z. staggers world

SHOULD BE ETCHED IN LETTERS OF GOLD

What if a reporter from 1960 had found out about Peter's close call with a power board truck? Write a SENSATIONAL HEADLINE of your own that might have appeared in the newspaper. Compare your headline with someone else in your class.

My side of the mountain?

Read the next part of the story, "Bone breaking confessions and then check out the photos here and decide if any of them are from "Peter's side of the mountain."

Build a bio box

A bio-box helps readers meet people.  It includes short snippets and facts to help the reader get to know the subject. You often see them in sports magazines or websites. Look here for bio-boxes on the Silver Ferns. Just click on their photos.

Begin a bio-box on Peter Snell. The next two parts of the story will tell you his age now, some favourite childhood memories, what he wants to be doing in his old age and a favourite food. Read on and add to your bio-box as you go through this TreasureLink.

What a battler!

"Taking a right turn," tells you what teachers used to try to make left handed kids do. Read on and see if they tried to make Peter do the same thing.

What attribute or quality does Peter display in this part of the story that will later help propel him to Olympic gold?

Active kids!

Peter and his mates were really active when they were young. Read "Tearing around" and "Wild life of country kids" and you will get an idea of what they did when they were not at school. This was the 1940s remember. There was less around to slow kids down. No television, no computers and no Playstations. Comics were big but kids could read these on the run! Read on!

Look here for an ALARMING report.

What do you think? Does this mean New Zealanders are less likely to win Olympic gold medals in the future?

Green gills!

These days a big part of Peter Snell's working life is focused on exercise. He finds out what makes the human body tick and what people can do to stay fit and strong. Perhaps it was all his research that has made him "extremely anti-smoking". Or, maybe it was the dock seed cigarettes he once made with a mate! Read "On the dock".

Tobacco advertising and sponsorship has been banned in New Zealand since 1995 but up until then tobacco companies would sponsor big sports events like tennis tournaments, cycling tours and car rallies. The tobacco companies would sometimes get sports stars to work for them.

This was in the days of amateur sport. If you were paid, you were banned! Sportspeople were not allowed to get prize money but they still had to train for long hours. That made the offer of a well paid job very hard to refuse.

This Puke Ariki story shows that Peter Snell and some other great New Zealand sportspeople once worked for Rothmans. Find "Tobacco Company offers deal" and "Pushing sport" and then decide if you agree or disagree with the statements below.

1. Tobacco companies would sponsor sports events so that cigarettes would become part of the healthy lifestyle package.

2. The tobacco companies employed top sportspeople so that the public would think, "If the stars are working for them, smoking can't be too bad."

3. Arthur Lydiard was probably right when he said, "Eating cigarettes would be better for you than smoking them."

4. Tobacco companies should still be allowed to sponsor sports because then New Zealand would be able to hold a lot more big events and have a lot more money available for sport.

One TV town

Television has helped make the Olympic Games more popular than ever. They were first televised in 1960 and this year the Games will be seen by more people than ever before.

Over 300 channels will transmit an expected 35,000 hours of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.  That means around 3.9 billion people worldwide will be able to watch them.

The New Zealand audience wasn't quite as big in 1964. Television was still quite new and many households didn't have one. When Peter Snell won his first gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics everyone wanted to see him run his second race. Read "Our Peter Snell" to see how they managed it in Opunake.

Write some speech bubbles to match the characters in the cartoons.

I remember

Finish the story now and find out about some more memories that Opunake people have of the Snell family.

This week's story let us glimpse at the personality of Peter Snell and see some of the qualities that helped make him a champion. Who else featured in this story that probably did quite a bit to help him along the way?

To find out what Peter Snell is doing now return to this story and read from "Hooked on study", through to the end of the story. It's a very good read.

Fast forward to 2004

Nick Willis is New Zealand's 1500 metre runner at this year's Olympics and this week's "Ask an expert" shows New Zealand has done amazingly well in this event.

Read about the runners who have won gold medals and take special note of the radio commentary that came with Jack Lovelock's win. Here are some of the runners in this year's race. Make up and rehearse your own race commentary and perform it to the class. You could even add in the names of a couple of your classmates as runners.

The runners in the final might be: Nick Willis - New Zealand,

Hicham El Guerrouji - Morocco, Bernard Lagat - Kenya, Mehdi Baala - France

Matthew Grayling

Image: The Daily News

Two Taranaki people are part of New Zealand's equestrian team at the Athens Olympics. Matthew Grayling and Heelan Tompkins will both compete in the three day event. First comes the tricky and precise discipline of dressage where rider and horse have to perform a delicate pattern of manoeuvres.  Next, they'll gallop their horses, Revo and Glengarrick through a tough cross country course of hills, flats and between 12 and 20 jumps. After that the show jumping begins so it's a tough event for horse and rider.

Tony Bird from The Daily News spoke to our two equestrians just after they were selected.

Matthew sees the Olympics as another one of life's challenges. "Like any competition we're there to do well." His horse Revo is known as Slim around the Grayling's Okato dairy farm. Revo was a racehorse once but he didn't do too well. Matthew bought him at four years old and eight years later Revo is among the best eventers in the world.

Matthew is the only rider to have done all his preparation at home but he says he knows his horse goes well and doesn't need to travel overseas to find out.  Jetsetters and royalty follow eventing in Britain and Europe. They travel and compete week in and week out. It's a little bit different for Matthew. He competes and then goes home to milk his cows.

Oakura's Heelan Tompkins will ride Glengarrick, her "most favourite horse in the world."  Heelan calls him Nugget and says he is faultless. "He is gentle and kind. He never does anything wrong although I make mistakes. He gives 110% whenever he's asked. He's a little horse with an amazing desire to please."

Eventing is a rough and tumble sport and Heelan has had her share of falls and broken bones. She gets excited before the cross country run but not nervous. It's the excitement that keeps her going and she says "I just want to win gold."

Eventers are riding for individual medals as well as team medals. Look here to see who else is in the New Zealand eventing team and how many make up the team.

Answers

Rewind

1. False. The war ends in 1945.

2. True. Britain already takes a lot of meat but agrees to take all surplus meat.

3. True

4. True.

5. False. That helicopter didn't arrive in New Zealand until 1947.

Click to go back to the questions.

Click to go back to the questions.