Few athletes have displayed a lifelong passion for athletics in quite the same way as Sean Quilty who passed away on 16 July after a long and courageous battle with cancer.
Known to everyone in athletics as “Doona”, Sean was not an athlete who would have been described as a teenage prodigy (although he was national junior champion at 1500m in 1986) but his career was impressive amassing a representative list of achievements the envy of many others.
His first major representation was, at it happens, probably his best – a silver medal behind his good mate Steve Moneghetti in the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada in 2:14.57.
That he lost his fight during the 2022 World Championships in Eugene is poignant for it was an event in which he wore the Green and Gold on three occasions – in Goteborg (1995), Athens (1997) and Seville (1999) with a best result of 27th in Athens.
Sean became an Olympian in 1996, twice represented Australia in the World Cross Country and made a second Commonwealth Team in 1998.
A dual national champion in the marathon (1991 and 1993), Sean also won the national gold at 10000m in 1999. His leading lifetime bests were in the half marathon and marathon, both set in Japan – 1:02.16 (Tokyo 1997) and 2:13.20 (Beppu in 1996).
But Sean’s career was far from over after his last national vest – he epitomised the lifetime athlete continuing to participate in all forms of athletics but perhaps most passionately in his later years on the Victorian Athletic League circuit where he was a prolific winner over the years at its “mecca” – Central Park Stawell over the Easter weekend, including the 3200m as recently as 2019.
By Brian Roe, Athletics Australia
Posted: 17/7/2022
