Quax’s final words of advice
Even in his final throes on this earth, Kiwi running legend Dick Quax was thinking of his fellow man.
In his last official interview, with Stuff just before losing his long-running battle with cancer, Quax issued an impassioned health warning to his fellow New Zealanders.
It was, he believed, his duty to alert Kiwis to the health dangers that confront them later in life.
Quax, the 1976 Olympic 5000 metres silver medallist and former world record-holder over the distance, had been battling cancer for nearly five years when he agreed to an interview to reflect on his sporting career. He died, yesterday morning, before that story could be published.
The 70-year-old was in poor health and did not want to be photographed because he had lost so much weight as the result of his ongoing treatments for the cancer. It started in his head and neck area but spread to other parts of his body.
During a long interview, repeatedly interrupted by throaty coughing fits, he made it clear he preferred not to dwell on his cancer, and the toll it had taken. He did not want this to be a story about his illness.
But Quax also said it was important to believe, even amid his declining health, that he could still do some good by sending out a positive message.
‘‘My take from it is you really need to be very vigilant when you get to a certain age because if you can get it early enough a lot of times it can be cured.
‘‘That’s my takeaway. It hasn’t necessarily worked that way for me, but that’s the advice I would give to people entering their late-50s or early-60s.’’
It had been a tough haul for Quax through a gruelling regimen of scans, tests and treatments. He’d long ago lost count of his chemo sessions and reckoned he was approaching 150 bouts of radiation therapy.
‘‘It knocks the heck out of you,’’ he said, a visible reflection of his own words. ‘‘You’re basically poisoning yourself. But I’m hanging in there. My body has taken a hell of a beating. That’s why my advice for people is to get yourself checked, whatever cancer you can be checked for.’’
An all-too-short time after speaking those words, he would lose that fight.
Friends had been deeply concerned about his health in recent months. They had noticed his weight loss, his sagging demeanour and the constant coughing bouts. They feared the worst.
Asked if he thought he was ‘‘ahead of the game’’, his reply was telling: ‘‘I don’t know ... I just don’t know.’’
Quax was proud of everything he had done in athletics, as well as something he did not do, which was visit the republic of South Africa at a time when its apartheid regime was under the microscope around New Zealand’s ongoing rugby contact.
He said he and fellow ‘70s track icons John Walker and Rod Dixon, with whom he formed an enduring and compelling rivalry, had all received invites to race in the republic.
‘‘We were offered a lot of inducements to go to South Africa and none of us did. I felt very strongly about apartheid. When you look now at how well the South Africans do in track and field ... those guys could never have competed in the same meet we were at.
‘‘We were offered good money, but said no. It was that important to us.’’
Quax believed he, Walker and Dixon ‘‘brought the best out in each other’’ at a time when they were staunch competitors on the track and good friends off it. They would spend months together each year touring Europe, chasing the competition and the modest money on offer.
‘‘I always thought ‘oh well, if Walker can do it, I can do it’, or ‘if Dixon can do it ...’ They probably thought the same about me,’’ said Quax.
‘‘John has very graciously acknowledged that I had an influence on his career by sort of showing the way, and helping him get to Europe. I realised quite early on how good Walker was.’’
Quax was also incredibly proud of his 18-yearold son Theo who has followed in his spike tracks to become a middle-distance runner of some repute. He had been coaching the chip off the old block even through his illness and was preparing to hand him over to the University of Northern Arizona where he is scheduled to start the new American college year.
‘‘It’s a good place for him to be and I think he’ll do well,’’ Quax mused. ‘‘He may make it as professional, he may just make it as good college runner. At the end of his college career he may give it away or be a hobbyist.
‘‘But he has the ability to be a professional runner.’’
Quax didn’t need telling what he risked missing. ‘‘It’s a big incentive ... I’m very, very proud of what he’s doing. And I’m loving being a part of it.’’ Was he in the greatest race of his life? ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said, taking some time to gather himself. ‘‘I want to see Theo ... I want to follow his career.’’
Whatever happened, was it a life well lived?
‘‘I think so. In some ways I’ve had an extraordinary life. It’s been fun.’’