WELLINGTON: Forty years after coaching John Walker to an Olympic gold medal, 93-year-old track coach Arch Jelley will try to guide another New Zealand athlete to victory in the 1,500 meters at the Rio de Janeiro Games.

Jelley was Walker's coach throughout a career in which he won the 1,500 at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and held the world mile record.

He first coached an Olympic athlete in the 1,500 meters when Neville Scott competed for New Zealand at the 1956 Games in Melbourne.

Jelley will be 94 when Hamish Carson, a 27-year-old ecologist from the Kapiti Coast near Wellington, competes in the 1,500 in Rio.

He says "if you've got the knowledge and keep up to date with new techniques, it doesn't matter how old you are."