Les Mills

Leslie Roy Mills, known worldwide as Les Mills, was a New Zealand Olympic athlete, gym founder, coach and mayor of Auckland City whose name became synonymous with organised fitness. He died peacefully on 29 June 2026 at the age of 91, surrounded by family after a sudden decline. His company and family confirmed the death; no specific medical cause was emphasised in the first public statements.

Born in Auckland on 1 November 1934, Mills lost his father at eleven and found purpose in strength training inspired by Charles Atlas programmes. He grew into a formidable thrower. Representing New Zealand, he competed in shot put and discus at four Olympic Games (1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972), serving as team captain and flagbearer in Rome in 1960 and as flagbearer again in 1972. At the Commonwealth Games he won five medals, including discus gold at Kingston in 1966, plus silvers and a bronze across discus and shot. His 1967 shot-put mark of about 19.80 metres stood as a New Zealand national record for forty-four years until Jacko Gill surpassed it in 2011.

With his wife Colleen, herself a world-class track and field athlete, he opened a first gym in Auckland in 1968 after seeing the fitness industry grow during an athletics scholarship stay in the United States. After early false starts the business flourished near Victoria Park and grew into the Les Mills New Zealand chain of twelve gyms. Their son Phillip and daughter-in-law Jackie later built Les Mills International, whose choreographed group classes such as BodyPump, BodyAttack and BodyCombat spread to more than one hundred countries. Mills also coached and administered sport, serving as national sports director in Papua New Guinea (1974-1976), as New Zealand's first Director of Coaching in Athletics (1977-1979), and as mentor to throwers including world champion Beatrice Faumuina.

From 1990 to 1998 he was mayor of Auckland City, winning a by-election after Catherine Tizard's appointment as governor-general and overseeing post-amalgamation city services, the opening of the Aotea Centre era projects, wheelie-bin collection, water metering and major civic works including early America's Cup Village planning and the Sky Tower complex. He lost the 1998 mayoralty to Christine Fletcher while leading New Zealand's Commonwealth Games team. Honours included an MBE (1973) for services to sport and a CNZM (2002) for local government and sport; in 2022 he, Phillip and Jackie were jointly inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.

Colleen died in 2005. Mills is survived by children Phillip and Donna, daughter-in-law Jackie, grandchildren Diana, Les Jr, Gabriel and Moana, and many great-grandchildren. Friends and family remembered a founding father of fitness whose drive, coaching and civic service helped make strength and group exercise part of everyday Kiwi and global culture.