Athletic Career
At the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, Quax won the silver medal in the 1500 metres. He competed in the 5000 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics but was eliminated in the heats. Quax won silver in the 5000 metres at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
In 1977 at Stockholm, Sweden he set a new world record time of 13m 12.9s in the 5000 metres. This record would stand less than a year, but as a national record it stood for over 31 years, until beaten by Adrian Blincoe in July 2008.
Early in 1980, at the Stanford Stadium track, Quax just missed Jos Hermens' 15K World Record by five seconds, running a New Zealand national record of 43:01.7
In his later career Quax switched his focus to the marathon, running a 2:11:13 in his debut marathon for 4th place at the Nike/OTC Marathon race in 1979, at that time the fastest debut marathon in history. In 1980 he returned and won the race in a New Zealand record time of 2:10:47 He did not compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow due to the West's boycott.
After retiring from active competition, Quax established a career in sports management.
Read more about this topic: Dick Quax
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