John Davies (athlete)
John Llewellyn Davies ( born May 25, 1938 in London, † July 21, 2003 in Auckland ) was a New Zealand athlete, winner of an Olympic bronze medal.
Davies was born in London, the son of Welsh parents in 1953 and moved with his family to New Zealand, where he lived first in Otago and then in Tokoroa. There he founded with teammates the Tokoroa Track Club, professional, he worked in public relations for NZ Forest Products.
His main discipline was the 1500 -meter run, with which he won the bronze medal in Tokyo at the Olympic Games in 1964. Two years earlier, at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, he won the silver medal over a mile. Davies had to give up his own athletic career due to injury before the Commonwealth Games in 1966 prematurely, he was trained with Peter Snell of Arthur Lydiard.
After his active career as an athlete, he started a career as manager of middle and long distance runners, as well as of the later silver medal winner in the 5000m Dick Quax and Toni Hodgkinson, the finalist in the 800 meters at the Olympic Games in 1996. 1987 and 1991 was it to the coaches of the New Zealand team at the world Championships in Athletics, 1988, he was a member of the coaching staff of the New Zealand Olympic Team. From 1985 to 1991 he was national coach of cross-country skiers.
Over three decades Davies also reported as a commentator on television of athletics events, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, on newspapers, he wrote about these events articles. Together with others he organized running events with runners as Ron Clarke and Kip Keino in New Zealand. In 1988 he was one of the organizing committee for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand, at. At the beginning of the 1990s he was active in the leadership of the New Zealand Association of Athletics Federations. In October 2000, Davies was elected to succeed Sir David Beattie President of the New Zealand Olympic Committee ( NZOC ).
In 1990, he wude added as a member in the Order of the British Empire. A few weeks before his death, he was honored for his contributions to the Olympic sports in New Zealand with the Leonard A Cuff Medal.