Dave Leech

Leech won his first national hammer throw championship in 1952, with a distance of 142 ft 8 in (43.48 m).^[3] 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.^[3] He went on to win the national title on four occasions in all, with successive victories in 1964 and 1965.^[3] 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.^[3][4]

At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Leech represented New Zealand in the hammer throw.^[5] He finished in seventh place with a best throw of 166 ft 5+1⁄2 in (50.74 m).^[6]

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.^[4]

At the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, Carr was a New Zealand's athletics section assistant manager,^[7] and two years later he was the athletics section manager for the New Zealand team at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.^[8] He received a merit award from Athletics New Zealand in 1988, and was awarded life membership of Athletics Canterbury in 1988.^[4]

Leech died in Christchurch on 21 October 2017.^[4][9] His wife, Pat, died in 2021.^[2]