Three years ago, Alexa Leary’s parents said goodbye to their daughter. Now she’s off to the Paris Olympics.
Three years ago, Alexa Leary’s parents said goodbye to their daughter. The 19-year-old triathlete - a silver medallist at the 2019 world junior titles - had fallen off her bike while training at about 70km/h and landed on her head.
She was airlifted to Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and immediately sent for emergency surgery. Part of her skull had to be removed or death would have been unavoidable. So Russ and his wife Belinda waited and endured, not knowing if Leary would ever come back to them. For six months, Leary stayed in hospital, alive but living with permanent brain damage and forced to relearn how to walk and talk and brush her teeth. That was in mid-2021. In April 2023, she qualified for her first Australian para-swimming team and contested the world para swimming championships in Manchester.Little more than one year after that, she has secured a place at her first Paralympics, having won the women’s multi-class 50m freestyle at the Paris 2024 trials.
Leary touched the wall in 27.89 seconds on Tuesday night, and then delivered a sassy, emotional interview that drew applause and more tears.“I am so impressed I am even in the water,” Leary told Channel Nine’s broadcast. “I am like ‘yeah, Lex, you have come so far’.” Leary said her parents “are the reason why I am here because they stuck by my side for six months in that hospital and never let go of me”.
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