RUNNING IS MY ONLY DRUG
Sprinter Leon speaks out about tragic childhood & dreams for the Olympics
FROM a childhood in a “crack den” to a career as a world class sprinter, life has taken some strange turns for Leon Reid.
The 25-year-old may now be one of Ireland’s leading hopes for next year’s Olympics but his is a journey that could so easily have gone astray.
Born and raised in the
English Midlands, his upbringing was turbulent to say the least.
“There’d be people downstairs smoking crack or heroin,” he says.
Reid spent time in 14 different foster homes but the escape hatch came via a Wexford woman, Claire Russell, who adopted him when he was 11.
His birth mother, Annemarie, hailed from Belfast and had struggled with drug addiction for years before passing away in 2016.
He was living in Bristol when he first found athletics, coming under the guidance of coach James Hillier, who has steered his career for the past 10 years. In his first season Reid won 100m silver at the European Youth Olympics while representing Britain, though his relationship with British Athletics soured in the years after.
“I got double-crossed,” he says. “They went back on their word a few times.”
His national identity had always been loosely defined: “My whole Mum’s side is Northern Irish and my foster Mum is born in Wexford. My Dad is English and Jamaican, so I’m actually more Irish than English.”
Reid had been back and forth to Wexford throughout his teens and, in 2017, he applied for a transfer of allegiance to represent Ireland.
That was approved just before the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, where he finished seventh in the 200m final.
In April that year he won 200m bronze for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games, after which tears flowed for both Reid and his adoptive mother.
“When she cries, I cry,” he says. “It was everything we’d worked for, from me getting up early, eating right, not going to parties, and her making sure I had enough money to go to training camps.”
His 200m best is 20.27, which might sneak him into a global final but to make a bigger impact Reid needs to improve.
To that end, he has spent much time learning from the greats.
At the age of 17 he went to Jamaica to train alongside Usain Bolt.
“Their work ethic was crazy, 5am starts every morning. Before the sun comes up, you’re on the grass pulling sleds.”
He later became friends with Wayde van Niekerk, the Olympic champion and 400m world record holder, and in January went to train with him in South Africa.
“It’s a kind of friendship,” says Van Niekerk (inset). “I thrive on the competition and Leon is not afraid of putting in that work.
“It’s something I enjoyed when working with him, knowing he wouldn’t make training easy.”