Cameron Leslie on returning to the Paralympics, missing Tokyo and the new driving force as he chases gold

Cameron Leslie after winning gold in the the Men's 50m Backstroke S4 at the Para Swimming World Championships Manchester 2023. Photo / Getty Images

Swimming champion Cameron Leslie will have a new level of support when he leaps into the water for his fourth Paralympics campaign.

The 34-year-old will lead the New Zealand team as a flag-bearer this week alongside Anna Grimaldi in a return to the event for the first time since 2016.

He missed the Tokyo Paralympics after the event clashed with the birth of his second child. Three years later, another child has arrived and all three kids will be in attendance to watch their father wear the black swimming cap on the biggest stage once again.

Leslie is a three-time gold medallist first making his mark at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics with a world record time in the individual medley SM4. He defended his title in London four years later before making it a three-peat in Rio.

But it’s been an eight-year gap at the Paralympics after withdrawing from the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021. Leslie was set to represent New Zealand in both Wheelchair Rugby and swimming in Tokyo but didn’t attend due to the birth of his daughter.

“With Delilah’s birth heading into the Tokyo Games we had tried so hard to get the Wheel Blacks qualified and we’d done it and I was a massive part of that. Played a lot of minutes. But also something I’d tried for in 2012 and 2016 and failed and we’d finally got it on the third try. And then to pull out last minute just sucked really,” he told the Between Two Beers podcast.

“To be in tears calling your teammates telling them, and this is the difference between team sports and individual sports – I called as many of the rugby boys as I could before I was running out of tears,” he said.

New Zealand's Cameron Leslie in the Men's 50m Freestyle S4 heats during day five of the 2023 Para Swimming World Championships. Photo / Getty Images

“As it turned out I probably wouldn’t have hopped on that plane anyway if I had not pulled out early because the day before we were meant to be flying out I was going to the doctors with Deliah who was quite sick and they were super close to a hospital admission for her. At that time when you don’t know when you might see them again, you’re not going to hop on a plane and leave a sick baby in Covid-land. You want to be there to support your partner and this is nine days post-Caesarian...your role as dad becomes more important at that point.”

Since then he has claimed eight World Championship medals across freestyle and backstroke events, and co-captained the Wheel Blacks to the quarter-finals of the 2022 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships, earning a Laureus award nomination for Sportsperson of the Year with a disability.

More importantly in that timeframe, another child has arrived changing the way he’s preparing for the Paralympics compared to previous years. He’s going straight from the pool each morning to daycare drop-off.

His three children and wife Emily will be flying over with him to Paris and he said having his kids watch him perform on the world stage was a key driver.

“I want to hit a podium that’s like the performance goal, but I guess alongside that it’s first time as dad. I want my kids to see Dad do something really cool. I’m very realistic to the one day having a dad with a disability isn’t going to be cool and, potentially, kids will pick on them for it. So I’m really passionate about giving them something to be proud of and for them to see Dad do something cool. And if that’s a podium finish, that’s a podium finish.

“And if it’s just seeing me represent New Zealand and carry the flag into the opening ceremony or represent New Zealand with pride and whatever it is...I just want them to be super proud of me and see me do something really cool but also see all these weird and wonderful disabilities that we do not see in New Zealand and see what is truly capable with the human body,” Leslie added.

In the podcast, Leslie opened up on how people with disabilities are perceived, often having questions asked through his wife or a friend instead of directly at him.

He also opened up about why swimming at a young age appealed to him.

“I think I just felt free in the water because when every time I tried athletics or throwing or something like that like you’re trying to hold a shot but with half a hand and you’re trying to launch it and it falls out the back of it and it just gets bloody annoying and you’re sitting there going I know I can send it more but it just wasn’t vibing with me. Running, oh bugger that,too slow, I’m not a runner.

“Swimming I felt very capable which was probably what really resonated with me, that sense of freedom and the ability to progress myself around at the speed I wanted to all of a sudden became an option, whereas previously I’d always been restricted by prosthetics or access or whatever the environment was putting around me that was always a limiting factor. But in the water that wasn’t the case.”

Leslie said when he was 10 a swimming coach never gave him a chance to success which ended up being a big motivator.

“I’m a bit of a sucker for proving people wrong. Seeing that coach and showing them my first gold medal and being like a bit of an ‘up yours, you bloody told me to quit years ago’.”