Dave Leech

Dave Leech
Personal information
Full nameDavid Dower Leech
Born(1927-03-09)9 March 1927
Christchurch, New Zealand
Died21 October 2017(2017-10-21) (aged 90)
Christchurch, New Zealand
Spouse
Pat Hastie
​
(m. 1955)​
Children3
Sport
CountryNew Zealand
SportTrack and field
Achievements and titles
National finals
Hammer throw champion (1952, 1962, 1964, 1965)
Medal record
Men's Masters athletics
Representing  New Zealand
World Masters Athletics Championships
Bronze medal – third place1997 DurbanM70 Hammer throw

David Dower Leech (9 March 1927 – 21 October 2017) was a New Zealand hammer thrower and athletics official. He represented his country at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In 1997, he won a World Masters hammer throw title in the M70 category.

Early life and family

Leech was born in Christchurch on 9 March 1927.[1] He was educated at St Bede's College, and then studied at Canterbury College and Christchurch Teachers' College, becoming a primary school teacher.[1] He married Patricia Elizabeth Hastie in 1955, and the couple went on to have three children.[1]

Athletics

National competition

Leech won his first national hammer throw championship in 1952, with a distance of 142 ft 8 in (43.48 m).[2] It was another 10 years before he won a second national, with a best throw of 169 ft 1⁄2 in (51.52 m) in 1962.[2] He went on to win the national title on four occasions in all, with successive victories in 1964 and 1965.[2] His best winning throw was 177 ft 6 in (54.10 m) in 1964, when he became the first New Zealander to achieve a distance of over 54 metres.[2][3]

Leech held the New Zealand residents' record for the hammer throw from 1962 to 1967.[1]

International competition

At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Leech represented New Zealand in the hammer throw.[4] He finished in seventh place with a best throw of 166 ft 5+1⁄2 in (50.74 m).[5]

Masters athletics

Leech went on to be active in Masters athletics. Between 1976 and 2014, he won 20 age-group titles in the hammer throw at New Zealand Masters championships, and he won a world Masters hammer throw bronze medal in the M70 category at the 1997 World Veterans Athletics Championships.[3]

Management

At the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, Carr was a New Zealand's athletics section assistant manager,[6] and two years later he was the athletics section manager for the New Zealand team at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.[7] He received a merit award from Athletics New Zealand in 1988, and was awarded life membership of Athletics Canterbury in 1988.[3] In 1990, Leech was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.[1]

Working life

After a period as a teacher, Leech spent the rest of his working life, from 1958 to 1992, with the New Zealand Probation Service, first as a probation officer and later as a probation manager.[1]

Death

Leech died in Christchurch on 21 October 2017.[3][8] His wife, Pat, died in 2021.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Taylor, Alister; Coddington, Deborah (1994). Honoured by the Queen – New Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa. p. 226. ISBN 0-908578-34-2.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Hollings, Stephen (October 2019). "National champions 1887–2019" (PDF). Athletics New Zealand. p. 38. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Athletics NZ weekly roundup". The New Zealand Herald. 24 October 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  4. ↑ "Dave Leech". New Zealand Olympic Committee. 2022. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  5. ↑ "Athletics hammer throw – men Perth 1962". Commonwealth Games Federation. 2020. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  6. ↑ "Coach for Games". The Press. Vol. 113, no. 33322. 5 September 1973. p. 16. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  7. ↑ "42 will have costs met". The Press. Vol. 116, no. 34127. 13 April 1976. p. 38. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  8. ↑ "David Leech obituary". The Press. 28 October 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  9. ↑ "Patricia Leech obituary". The Press. 3 April 2021. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.