When Paige Leonhardt was five years old, she was in a car accident in which she was thrown from the car. Her injuries from the accident were severe, requiring four years of recovery with spinal taps, MRIs and operations to remove fluid from her brain. She had haemorrages behind the eyes and now suffers from drusens, yellow deposits under the retinas.
She continues to suffer hemiplegia on her right side as well as intacraneal hypertension, epilepsy and autism.
She started swimming when she was 12 years old when she was undergoing therapy. She started competing through school with able-bodied athletes. Swimming is in Paige’s blood – her grandmother was friends with Dawn Fraser.
A breaststroke specialist, in 2014 Paige competed at the Australian Championships at the age of 13. Competing in the open multi-class 50m breaststroke she took home the bronze medal. At the Australian Age Championships that followed she took gold in both the 50m and 100m breaststroke.
At the 2015 Australian Open Championships she won bronze in the multi-class 50m breaststroke as well as making the final of the 100m breaststroke. At the 2015 Australian Age Championships she won silver in the 50m breaststroke as well as bronze in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle.
Paige made her Paralympic debut at the Rio 2016 Games, where she qualified for the final in the 100m butterfly, finishing in sixth place and the 100m breaststroke where she also finished sixth.
In her second Paralympic Games campaign, Paige was able to secure her first medal. Securing a silver medal in the women’s 100m butterfly S14. Swimming in lane 5, she flew home to finish with a time of 1:05.48 in second behind Valeriia Shabalina of the RPC. She also contested in the women’s 100m breaststroke SB14 and the 200m individual medley SM14, placing in sixth position in both events.
Paige is family friends with Paralympic wheelchair rugby player Ryley Batt and lists him among her idols.
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