Les Mills, the New Zealand thrower who carried his country's flag at the Olympics, founded a gym business whose name now hangs over fitness studios in more than a hundred countries, and served three terms as Mayor of Auckland City, died on 29 June 2026. He was 91.

Born Leslie Roy Mills in Auckland on 1 November 1934, he grew up in the city's west and found his calling in the throwing circle, where raw power met fine technique. He represented New Zealand at four Olympic Games, in Rome in 1960, Tokyo in 1964, Mexico City in 1968 and Munich in 1972, competing in both the shot put and the discus. At the 1960 Rome Games he was the team captain and flagbearer, and he carried the flag once more at Munich in 1972, a measure of the standing he held among his fellow athletes, as the New Zealand Herald recalled in remembering his career.

His finest hour on the international stage came at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, where he took gold in the discus and silver in the shot put. Across his Commonwealth Games career he gathered five medals in all, a gold, three silvers and a bronze. His national shot put record of 19.81 metres endured for 44 years before it was finally surpassed, a testament to how far ahead of his era he had thrown.

When his own competitive days were over, Mills turned the discipline of elite sport into a business. In 1968, together with his wife Colleen, he opened a gym in Auckland, a modest operation in its earliest days that nonetheless planted the seed of something far larger. The family kept building, and a generation later his son Phillip and daughter-in-law Jackie carried the Les Mills name onto the world stage, developing the choreographed group-fitness programmes such as BodyPump, BodyCombat and BodyBalance that are now taught in tens of thousands of clubs across more than a hundred countries, as RNZ reported. The instructors and members who move to those routines each week, many of whom never knew the man, owe the name above the door to him.

Mills gave himself to public life as well. Elected Mayor of Auckland City in 1990, he served three terms until 1998 and became the first full-term mayor of the city after the local-government reforms of 1989. His years in office coincided with a period of visible change for Auckland. The opening of the Aotea Centre, the rise of the Sky Tower on the skyline, and the redevelopment of the Viaduct waterfront for the America's Cup all fell within his tenure, leaving the city centre noticeably remade. Colleagues across the political divide remembered him warmly. "Another tōtara has fallen," said the current Auckland Mayor, Wayne Brown, invoking the great native tree that New Zealanders reserve for figures of true stature.

Even as athlete, businessman and mayor, Mills never strayed far from the coaching that had shaped him. He guided the discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina to a world title in 1997 and a Commonwealth gold in 1998, work that earned him recognition as Halberg Coach of the Year. His country honoured him repeatedly. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1973 for services to sport, made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002 for services to local government and sport, and inducted, alongside Phillip and Jackie, into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2022.

Those who knew him traced a single thread through the many chapters of his life. His son Phillip said his father "always wanted to help others," whether in fitness, politics or family. From the New Zealand Olympic Committee, chief executive Nicki Nicol said simply, "His place in New Zealand's Olympic history is firmly established," as 1News reported. He was predeceased by his first wife, Colleen, and is survived by his children, Phillip and Donna, his daughter-in-law Jackie, his grandchildren Diana, Les Jr, Gabriel and Moana, and his great-grandchildren.

Few New Zealanders left a mark across so many fields. Les Mills threw for his country with distinction, then turned his competitor's drive toward helping ordinary people grow stronger, and finally toward serving the city he loved. The gyms he started have multiplied far beyond anything he could have pictured in 1968, and his name has become shorthand around the world for the simple, communal act of working out together. He coached champions, guided a city through a season of growth, and raised a family that carried his vision onward. In the throwing circle, in the boardroom, in the mayor's chair and at home, he measured himself by what he could build and whom he could lift. That is the legacy he leaves, a New Zealand life of strength offered in the service of others, still in motion in every studio that bears his name.