New Zealand running great Quax dead at 70

New Zealand athletics great Dick Quax has died at the age of 70, with the Olympic Games 5000m silver medallist having battled cancer since 2013.

New Zealand runner Dick Quax died on Monday at the age of 70 after a long battle with cancer.

Regarded as one of his country's greatest runners, Quax won a silver medal in the 5,000 metres at the Montreal 1976 Olympics and also set a world record for the distance.

Born in The Netherlands in 1948, Theodorus Jacobus Leonardus "Dick" Quax moved to New Zealand with his family as a child and, along with John Walker and Rod Dixon, he became part of a golden era of New Zealand middle distance running in the 1970s.

He finished second behind Finland's Lasse Virren in the 5,000 metres at the Montreal Olympics and a year later, he set a then-world record of 13 minutes, 12.9 seconds in Stockholm.

Quax was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2013, but told an interviewer in January "I'm not dying of cancer, I'm living with cancer."

His death was confirmed on Monday by a family friend.