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John Leslie
Snowboard
Age: 21
Local Club:
Ottawa Akademy
# Paralympics: First
By Nick Faris
He’s at the top of his game. In a matter of days, John Leslie could be at the top of his sport.
March 14 will mark the seminal race of the 21-year-old snowboarder’s budding career. The Ottawa Akademy club athlete will don Canadian colours by the Black Sea, competing in the first-ever Paralympic snowboard cross event.
Leslie will enter the Games ranked sixth in the world, but with three bronze medals from his four World Cup races this season, the Arnprior-raised athlete is on a definitely upswing heading into Sochi.
“It’s kind of all coming together and I’m super stoked,” says Leslie, who has setup shop in B.C. to train for the Paralympics. “I’m peaking right when I should be, so I’m ready to go over and kick some ass.”
2014 has already been the best season of Leslie’s young career. The World Cup medals were the first he’s won, in his fourth winter competing internationally.
Just as Leslie has had his sights set on a Paralympic push all year, his Canadian coaches have tailored their training to a Sochi-specific focus.
“The way they’ve set it up is supposed to make it so that on the day of our race, March 14, our muscles are peaked and ready to go, and our fatigue levels will be low,” explains the Algonquin College business student. “We’ll be out there in the best possible state to race.”
With his sport’s arrival on the Paralympic stage, Leslie isn’t alone amongst athletes who have upped their games.
“Everyone’s been pushing it so hard and progressing so well,” notes the athlete who was hampered by medical issues last season. “It’s going to be interesting to see who the top three guys are, because it’s definitely not the way it’s been in seasons before. This year, it’s been all over the map, so it’s going to be cool.”
Paralympic journey unexpected
Chasing Paralympic gold is a relatively new dream for Leslie. A hockey player growing, Leslie lost the bottom portion of his left leg to cancer at age 11.
He managed to return to competitive hockey, but eventually dropped it in favour of snowboarding since it ate up too much of his time in high school and the NHL wasn’t in his future.
Leslie was a strong athlete for Arnprior District High School’s snowboard team, but again didn’t see a competitive future in the pursuit until his coach, the Akademy’s Cassandra Smith, learned that he had an artificial limb – much to her surprise.
Smith connected Leslie with Canada Snowboard, and soon enough he was competing internationally as a teenager. By 2012, his sport was added to the Paralympic alpine program, and with it came a newfound commitment to a high-performance athlete lifestyle, and a cross-country move to the para-snowboard national team’s base at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna.
Now he’s gained a fair amount of notoriety, appearing in TV commercials throughout the Olympics for Petro Canada’s FACE program – an initiative that supports rising athletes financially so they can train more in their quest for the podium – alongside future Olympic snowboard hopeful Tayler Wilton.
“I think it’s going to be something that 10 years down the road, when I look back on my life, it’s kind of like, ‘Wow. I love snowboarding, it’s my favourite sport in the world, and I was a part of the first-ever Paralympic snowboard team. That is really cool,’” Leslie indicates. “I think it’s going to be a pride that develops over time.”
The next decade could bring unforeseen highs to Leslie’s snowboard career. As the preamble to Sochi fades away, though, he has just one goal in mind: peaking on March 14.
“I hope to make everybody proud,” he says.
Sochi sked
Friday, March 14
Para-Snowboard Cross – Men’s Standing
3 a.m. ET
Leslie wants young Paralympic sport to evolve quickly
–By Michael Lapointe
Para-snowboarders like Ottawa Akademy’s John Leslie are naturally thrilled to have the opportunity to compete in the Paralympic Games, but it’s nonetheless a bit of a timid debut for their sport.
Lumped in under the alpine skiing discipline, the men and women have just one event to compete in – snowboard cross, for standing skiers only (there is no visually impaired category, for instance).
Their runs will timed individually, unlike in Olympic competition where four competitors race head-to-head on the same course.
“The able-bodied go four at a time, but in para, because of different issues, we go one at a time in a time trial,” Leslie explains, noting there is a push, especially from younger athletes, to make it a four-athlete race in the future. “When you are racing four people down the course, you are pushing yourself ten times harder than you would be if you were by yourself.”
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