Elliott Compares His Style With Snell’s

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30592, 7 November 1964, Page 16

Elliott Compares His Style With Snell’s

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 6. Far from being reticent about compairing himself and P. G. Snell, the great Australian athlete, H. J. Elliott, tonight seemed interested in discussing, in a genial manner, the prospects of the “race” which the two never ran.

Elliott, who will be guest speaker at next week’s dinner to benefit the Murray Halberg Crippled Children Trust, agreed that there was a great difference between the racing styles, and also temperament, of Snell and himself.

way to run. I was inspired by the way Vladimir Kuts won the 5000 and 10,000 metres titles at Melbourne.

passed me, I would have had no answer. “But Snell, when he is at his best, does not show everything he has. No one knows how hard he can be pushed. “If I had run against him I know what would have been my tactics —my tentative plan, anyway. I would have required the early pace being fast enough to reach the half-mile in Imin 55sec, and then I would have tried to make my run with a lap and a quarter left.” And the result, in Elliott’s estimation? “I’m convinced,” he said, “that there would have been inches in it, only inches. I think we could have raced half a dozen times and gained a different result each time.”

“He just ran everyone else off their legs. He was determined not to surrender the lead. As soon as anyone tried to pass him he snatched back the lead again. It made you feel even a little ill inside—but to me that was a supreme expression of ‘front’ running or aggressive running. “In my style I put all my cards on the table—a couple of times, anyway, such as at Rome, when, if anyone had

“My tactics were always to force a strong pace on the field and try to run the legs off them,” he said. “Snell’s are to outsprint everyone from about two or three hundred yards out. “It’s hard to say which is the finer method. To me the aggressive way is the exciting