Encounter - What Happens When You've Run to the Top (Peter Snell & John Walker)

Television (Full Length) – 1976

This March 1976 Encounter item catches up on athlete Peter Snell while studying human performance at University of California, Davis — 12 years after his double Olympic triumph in Tokyo. When world champion mile runner John Walker turns up, Snell takes him for a jog, and puts Walker through his paces in the Human Performance Laboratory. The pair muse over life, sport, success, choosing your future, and which of them is the best. The master counsels his heir on the upcoming Montreal Olympics, after Walker expresses fear at becoming the “biggest failure in history".

It is an example of the thinking of a guy who was in a particular situation at that particular time. The thing is, that you change…
– Peter Snell talks about his 1965 book No Bugles No Drums