New Zealand track great won silver at 1976 Games
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand runner Dick Quax died on Monday at age 70 after a long battle with cancer.
Regarded as one of his country’s greatest runners, Mr. Quax won a silver medal in the 5,000 meters at the 1976 Olympics and also set a world record for the distance.
Born in TheNetherlands in 1948, Theodorus Jacobus Leonardus “Dick” Quax moved to New Zealand with his family as a child and, along with John Walker and Rod Dixon, he became part of a golden era of New Zealand middle- distance running in the 1970s.
He finished a close second behind Finland’s Lasse Virren in the 5,000 meters at the Montreal Olympics and a year later, he set a then- world record of 13minutes, 12.9 seconds in Stockholm.
Walker, who was a world record- holder at the mile, posted on social media: “He helped me a lot as a young athlete and I will always be grateful for our time shared.”
Nick Willis, who won a silver medal for New Zealand in the 1,500 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a bronze medal in the same event at Rio de Janeiro eight years later, described Mr. Quax as “one of the all- time greats.”
Mr. Quax was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2013 but told an interviewer in January “I’m not dying of cancer, I’m living with cancer.” A family friend said he passed away at an Auckland hospital.