| Dave Leech | |
| Full Name: | David Dower Leech |
| Birth Date: | 9 March 1927 |
| Death Place: | Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Country: | New Zealand |
| Sport: | Track and field |
| Nationals: | Hammer throw champion (1952, 1962, 1964, 1965) |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
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.
Leech was born on 9 March 1927.[1] He married his wife, Patricia Elizabeth, in the 1950s.
Leech won his first national hammer throw championship in 1952, with a distance of 142feet.[2] It was another 10 years before he won a second national, with a best throw of 169feet 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 177feet in 1964, when he became the first New Zealander to achieve a distance of over 54 metres.[2]
At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Leech represented New Zealand in the hammer throw.[3] He finished in seventh place with a best throw of 166feet.[4]
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.[5]
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.[5]
Leech died in Christchurch on 21 October 2017.[5] [8] His wife, Pat, died in 2021.[9]