Dave Steen

David Lorne Steen (born 2 January 1942) is a Canadian former track and field athlete who specialised in the shot put. He was a two-time gold medallist in the event at the Commonwealth Games in 1966 and 1970, breaking games records both times. He had won the bronze medal at the 1962 event. His personal record was , set in 1970.

He was a nine-time national champion in throwing events at the Canadian Track and Field Championships. Also among his honours were a shot put bronze at the 1967 Pan American Games and two bronze medals in the shot and discus at the 1969 Pacific Conference Games. He was coached by Bill Bowerman within the Oregon Ducks track and field program and was part of the winning team for the 1962 American collegiate NCAA title.

After retiring from sport, he became a writer. He was a journalist at the Toronto Star from 1968 to 1994, wrote several non-fiction books on exercise, and published his first novel A Bicycle Story in 2022.

Career

Early life A native of Burnaby, British Columbia, he became interested in athletics through the exploits of his older brother Don Steen, who became the national decathlon champion in 1955. - Oct 20, 1966 His brother later named his son David Steen, who continued the family's athletic tradition.

He had his first achievements in the shot put while at Douglas Road Elementary School in Burnaby, winning the school title at age eleven. Steen grew to be a tall man, at six-foot and four and a half inches, and as his physique developed he reached a weight of 235 pounds. The following year he had his best placing in NCAA competition, coming second in the shot put final. This earned him his first major international call-up for the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, held in Perth, Western Australia. There he had a throw of , which would have won all previous titles but on this occasion was a close third behind Martyn Lucking and Mike Lindsay.

In the 1963 track and field season he achieved a Canadian record of , Suffering heavily from infectious mononucleosis, he ultimately missed the entire 1964 season, including the Olympic competition.

He took a shot put and discus double at the 1967 national championships and his best throw that year was .

Steen was Canadian champion in the shot put in both 1968 and 1969, solidifying an unbeaten run from 1965. The latter title was his last at national level.

He returned to defend his shot put title at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. The 28-year-old successfully topped the podium again, winning the gold medal with a new games record (and lifetime best) of . He was the first man to defend that title since Harry Hart did so in 1934. This was the last major competition of his career. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1977.

Writing and coaching After his retirement from competition he began coaching young athletes in the 1970s. This included novelist Lawrence Hill—a keen teenage runner—whom Steen advised to focus on writing after a poor outcome of a fitness test. His athletes also included three Olympians - John Craig, Paul Craig, and Brian Maxwell. Maxwell went on to be the co-inventor of Power Bars.

He was a writer and editor for the Toronto Star from 1968 to 1994. He published A Bicycle Story in 2022, a mystery novel covering cycling, ageing and crime.

Personal life He married Margaret Daly, also a journalist, in Chicago in late 1963, though this was short-lived. Steen married for a second time in 1967 to Cassie Gairdner, a former Eastern Canadian junior champion discus thrower (introduced by Cassie’s brother and then Steen's teammate, Olympic decathlete Bill Gairdner). They had 3 children: Laura Jane, Heather and Stefan. In 1996 he moved back to British Columbia to live by the ocean, write, and take up competitive cycling.

International competitions

National titles Canadian Track and Field Championships Shot put: 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 Discus throw: 1965, 1967 Hammer throw: 1960