John Davies (athlete, 1938)
John Llewellyn Davies (born May 25, 1938 in London , † July 21, 2003 in Auckland ) was a New Zealand athlete and winner of an Olympic bronze medal.
Davies was born in London to Welsh parents and moved with his family to New Zealand in 1953, where he lived first in Otago and then in Tokoroa . There he founded the Tokoroa Track Club with fellow athletes and worked in public relations for NZ Forest Products .
His main discipline was the 1,500 meter run , with which he won the bronze medal at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo . Two years earlier, he won the silver medal over a mile at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth . Davies had to give up his own sporting career due to injury before the Commonwealth Games in 1966 , he was trained together with Peter Snell by Arthur Lydiard .
After his active career as an athlete, he started a career as a coach of medium and long-distance runners, including Dick Quax , who later won the silver medal in the 5000 meters, and Toni Hodgkinson , the finalist in the 800 meters at the 1996 Olympic Games . In 1987 and 1991 he was one of the coaches of the New Zealand team at the World Athletics Championships, in 1988 he was a member of the coaching staff of the New Zealand Olympic team. From 1985 to 1991 he was the national trainer for cross-country skiers.
For three decades, Davies also reported on television as a commentator on athletics events, Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games, and wrote articles for newspapers on these occasions. Together with others he organized running events with runners like Ron Clarke and Kip Keino in New Zealand. From 1988 he was a member of the Organizing Committee for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. At the beginning of the 1990s he was active in the management of the New Zealand Athletics Association. In October 2000, Davies was elected President of the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) to succeed Sir David Beattie .
In 1990 he was accepted as a member of the Order of the British Empire . A few weeks before his death, he was awarded the Leonard A Cuff Medal for his services to the Olympic sport in New Zealand .
Web links
- John Davies in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
- John DAVIES - New Zealand - 1964 Olympic bronze in the 1500m , online at sporting-heroes.net (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Portrait on the New Zealand Olympic Committee website
- ↑ a b c Terry Maddaford: Obituary: John Davies , In: The New Zealand Herald , July 22, 2003 (English, online at nzherald.co.nz)
- ↑ Leonard-Cuff-Medal ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the New Zealand Olympic Committee website
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Davies, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Davies, John Llewellyn (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | New Zealand athlete |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 25, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 21, 2003 |
| Place of death | Auckland |