Olympics: Medallists snubbed - Quax

A New Zealand Olympic Games medallist claims he and other New Zealand medal winners had been snubbed by not being invited to be Olympic torch-bearers.

Dick Quax, who won a silver medal in the 5000m at Montreal in 1976, said yesterday that he and 1500m bronze medallist Rod Dixon were not even approached by the New Zealand Olympic Committee.

Quax said people who had brought New Zealand Olympic glory should have been the first to be invited to carry the torch here.

"I don't know what I've done wrong. It would be hard to draw the conclusion that it had been merely an oversight," he said.

The list of New Zealand torch-bearers was announced this week.

Among the 300 are swimmers Danyon Loader and Jack Doms, discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina, athletes John Walker, Barry Magee, Sir Murray Halberg, John Davies and Toni Hodgkinson, canoeists Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald, and windsurfer Bruce Kendall.

Several high-profile New Zealanders, including Russell Coutts, Peter Jackson, Sir Howard Morrison, Sean Fitzpatrick and Prime Minister Helen Clark, are also among the people chosen to carry the torch from Queenstown on June 5, to Wellington, Rotorua and finishing in Auckland two days later.

New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive Michael Hooper said the torch-bearers were selected after a lengthy public process.

"It was very open. [Quax's] name could have come forward," Hooper said.

Quax was wrong to assume that they should have asked him. Members of the rowing eight who won gold in 1972 were not asked either, he said.

The committee decided to involve communities in the selection and approached a number of people directly.

"We've got a lot of past Olympians included," Hooper said..

Olympic committee board members were also asked to participate.

"We have no family members of staff or anything like that doing it at all," Hooper said.

Quax said he did not know how the selection process worked.

"If it was good enough to approach some people it was good enough to ask us. I just think this has been poorly handled. We don't have that many [Olympic] medallists."

- NZPA