Olympic rowing great dies

Legendary Kiwi rower Dudley Storey has died aged 77.

Storey, who won gold in the four at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and silver in the coxless four at Munich in 1972, was recently diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.

His son, Dudley junior, confirmed the news on Twitter on Monday, writing: ‘‘My father, Dudley Storey senior. Olympic gold medalist. Strongest man I’ve ever known. Died today, age 77’’.

After retiring from the sport, Storey became the national rowing coach from 1982 to 1986 and managed the country’s rowing teams at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984 and the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986.

In 1983, Storey was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to rowing.

The 1968 crew were inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, but as Storey recalled in an interview before the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the four - which included Dick Joyce, Ross Collinge, Warren Cole and Simon Dickie as cox - was originally put together as a pool of standby rowers to fill in should someone fall ill in the eight at the Mexico Games.

But Storey said they soon had a feeling they were good enough to win a medal in Mexico and didn’t want the tag of being spare parts to the top crew.