Name Dick Joyce | Role Olympic athlete | |
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Olympic medals Rowing at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's eight Similar People Simon Dickie, Athol Earl, Franklin Hobbs | ||
Richard John "Dick" Joyce (born 1 May 1946) is a former New Zealand rower who won two Olympic gold medals during his career.
Joyce was born in 1946 in Wellington, New Zealand. For the 1968 Summer Olympics, New Zealand qualified an eight and had a pool of four rowers and a cox as a travelling reserve; Joyce was part of this reserve. Preparations were held in Christchurch at Kerr's Reach on the Avon River. The reserve rowers were unhappy with the "spare parts" tag and felt that they were good enough to perhaps win a medal if put forward as a coxed four. The manager, Rusty Robertson, commented about them that they were "the funniest looking crew you've ever seen". There were stern discussions with the New Zealand selectors. In a training run, the coxed four was leading the eight over the whole race. In the end, the reserve rowers got their way and New Zealand entered both the coxed four and the coxed eight. Joyce won the Olympic coxed four event along with Dudley Storey, Ross Collinge, Warren Cole and Simon Dickie (cox); this was New Zealand's first gold medal in rowing. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich he teamed with Tony Hurt, Wybo Veldman, John Hunter, Lindsay Wilson, Athol Earl, Trevor Coker, Gary Robertson and Simon Dickie (cox) to win the eights.
Joyce is one of only ten New Zealanders to have won two or more Olympic gold medals. He later owned an engineering business in Seaview, an industrial suburb of Lower Hutt. He has always been associated with the Hutt Valley and belongs to the Hutt Valley club, but has moved and now lives in Petone.