New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame chief executive Ron Palenski is set to travel to Dallas early next year to meet Snell and wife Miki to uplift the personal collection of Snell for delivery to the hall.
In its annual report, board chairman John Beattie said the hall was very grateful to Snell for entrusting it with these special and cherished items.
He said the items would be honoured and preserved by the hall and used to educate and inspire visitors to the hall.
Beattie yesterday said it was a great opportunity to get some of Snell's items to the hall.
He did not know what would exactly be discovered but said with Snell having had such as distinguished career he imagined there would be plenty of items to look at.
He said many athletes got in touch with the hall when they got older or, in some cases their families got in touch, to donate items from their careers.
The donation of Snell's stems from early last year when the black singlet he wore at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics went on sale by auction.
Te Papa got involved in the bidding for the singlet but doubts arose over whether the singlet was authentic.
It was eventually withdrawn from sale.
But the auction got Snell thinking about what he should do with all the items he had collected over the years.
He gave 14 pieces of memorabilia to Te Papa, including running spikes and Olympic medals, and this was officially handed over to the museum in a ceremony in April this year.
Snell (79) has lived in Dallas for more than 40 years but wants to return to the items to New Zealand and felt there was no better place than the hall for the items.
Meanwhile, the hall reported an increase in visitors over the past year.
The final visitor tally was 10,254 beating the 9838 recorded when the hall opened in 1999.
The hall recorded a small loss of $4921. The hall was still very reliant on funding from Sport New Zealand - $100,000 this year - and it would be easier if the hall knew it was coming every year, the report said.
In his report, Palenski said the increasing amount of memorabilia coming in was leading to the hall rapidly running out of room.
The hall also paid tribute to the late Colin Meads who had been a big supporter.
Related Stories
Comments
what pathetic numbers visiting this place! it's base and vulgar that there is a entrance charge to get in! look what happen to the Setters when they dropped their entrance charge! the place went ahead in leaps & bounds! some 'love' chief executive Ron Palenski! others might think he is Way over paid! I'm in the later group! Dear I ask who will be paying for his trip to USA?