VERSATILE: Recent gold medallist Cameron Leslie is already focusing on his next sporting goal, only days after arriving home following the International Paralympic Committee World Long Course Swimming Championships in Canada. PHOTO/MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM
VERSATILE: Recent gold medallist Cameron Leslie is already focusing on his next sporting goal, only days after arriving home following the International Paralympic Committee World Long Course Swimming Championships in Canada. PHOTO/MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM
Whangarei's most recent world champion Cameron Leslie has touched down in Northland - but not for long.
The 23-year-old swimmer is rolling out to his Wheel Blacks wheelchair rugby training camp in Hamilton this weekend, in preparation for a Tri Series competition in Sydney next month.
Last Sunday Leslie wonthe 150m Individual Medley SM4 at the International Paralympic Committee World Long Course Swimming Championships in Canada, despite harbouring a painful shoulder injury. His gold medal, and bronze medal for the 50m backstroke a few days prior, added to the total New Zealand medal tally of 15.
"Overall it was a pretty satisfying trip in terms of overall team performance and personal performance," Leslie said.
Particularly remarkable given the fact that 10 days before his 50m backstroke race he couldn't do backstroke at all thanks to a shoulder injury from a fall.
Thankfully his "swimmer's shoulders" saved him from a complete shoulder dislocation, but the tendons, ligaments and muscles surrounding his right shoulder were left inflamed.
"My shoulder rotation was affected and so in back stroke it affected the motion and ability to load up the stroke."
He saw local physiotherapist Wendy Langlands as well as a specialist, who suggested injecting cortisone - which Leslie turned down.
"I would rather have a longer career in sport rather than a short term fix. I decided that I was going to harden up and push through."
And push through he did, convincingly beating Takayuki Suzuki (Japan) and Jonas Larsen (Denmark) to gold by almost six seconds with a time of 2min 34.97sec.
While he admits it's nearly 10 seconds slower than his world record time of 2min 25.98sec, it's definitely due to the shoulder injury and he's still happy with the result.
Leslie is now taking "a week or two" off swimming, but he's not taking it lying down.
This weekend's Wheel Blacks camp will be the New Zealand squad's last chance to play together ahead of next month's competition.
The Wheel Blacks will be pitted against the United States and Australian teams, who are ranked number one and two in the world respectively.
"It's being played outdoors at Cathedral Square which is quite unusual," Leslie said.
To follow the Wheel Blacks progress at the competition, like them on Facebook.
