David McKenzie (fencer)

{{Short description|Australian fencer (1936–1981)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}

{{Use Australian English|date=February 2014}}

{{Infobox sportsperson

| name = David McKenzie

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1936|7|15|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Sydney, Australia

| death_date = {{death date and age|1981|8|10|1936|7|15|df=yes}}

| death_place = Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

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| sport = Fencing

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{{MedalSport | Fencing}}

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{{MedalCompetition|British Empire Games}}

{{MedalSilver | 1962 Perth | Men's Team Foil}}

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David McKenzie (15 July 1936 – 10 August 1981) was an Australian fencer. He competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics.{{cite web |url=https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/mc/david-mckenzie-1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417193152/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/mc/david-mckenzie-1.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 April 2020 |title=David McKenzie Olympic Results |accessdate=12 October 2010 |work=sports-reference.com}} He was an International Olympic Committee member from 1974 to 1981.{{cite web|title=AOC Office Bearers and Australian IOC Members|url=http://corporate.olympics.com.au/footer/the-aoc/state-olympic-councils/inside-the-aoc/office-bearers-and-australian-ioc-members|website=Australian Olympic Committee website|accessdate=13 May 2015}} He replaced Lewis Luxton who had resigned.{{cite book|last1=Gordon|first1=Harry|title=Australia at the Olympic Games|date=1994|publisher=University of Queensland Press|location=Brisbane|isbn=0702226270}} McKenzie gained notoriety for encouraging Dennis Tutty to go to court to challenge rugby league's restraint of trade clauses, a case that would change professional sport in Australia.{{cite news|title=How Olympic fencer David McKenzie helped Dennis Tutty change the course of rugby league|newspaper=ABC News |date=17 December 2021 |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-18/how-david-mckenzie-helped-dennis-tutty-shape-australian-sport/100706926}}

In August 1981, while attending a meeting of National Olympic Committees in Milan, McKenzie received an urgent telegram requesting that he leave Italy and travel to the United States to meet with the organizers of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. On his way, he stopped over at Honolulu and was found strangled to death in a Waikiki bath house. The murder remains unsolved.{{Cite news |date=2021-12-17 |title=How an Olympic fencer and future IOC member helped change the course of rugby league |language=en-AU |work=ABC News |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-18/how-david-mckenzie-helped-dennis-tutty-shape-australian-sport/100706926 |access-date=2023-10-11}}{{Cite web |title=David Henry MCKENZIE |url=https://olympics.com/en/athletes/david-henry-mckenzie |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Olympics}}

One of the officials he was to meet was William E. Simon, then president of the US Olympic Committee. Simon expressed his suspicions about the nature of McKenzie's death in his autobiography, published posthumously in 2003, claiming that foul play was involved.