‘I’ve come so far in life’: Leary wins gold, breaks world record
Australia’s golden girl of the pool clinched her second gold medal in the S9 100m freestyle at the Paris Paralympics, shattering her own world record and delivering a victory lap that had the crowd at La Défense Arena roaring.
Alexa Leary has won her second gold medal in the S9 100m freestyle at the Paris Paralympics and then raised the roof by breaking into the wildest and most joyful victory lap you’ll ever see.
Leary stayed on the podium longer than normally allowed, singing along to Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head, and then kept whooping it up for about 15 minutes on the pool deck.
Following her earlier win in the mixed medley relay, Leary captured the individual 100m freestyle gold in devastating fashion, breaking her own world record in the heats and then again in the final, stopping the clock at 59.53 seconds.
Leary has become the darling of Australian sport. She suffered horrific injuries, including serious brain damage, in a bike crash on the Sunshine Coast in 2021. Her intellectual disability means her post-race interviews are completely unfiltered and invariably a delight. She did not disappoint on the podium in Paris. There’s never been a singalong like it.
When Leary turned to face the scoreboard, the reality of her achievement struck her with such force that she let slip an F-bomb, quickly drowned out by the roaring crowd at La Défense Arena.
“I’m amazed that I did it,” she said.
“I really just wanted to break the world record and I did. I broke it this morning, but tonight was my show and it was a great one.”
“I’ve just come so far in life,” she said. “Like being told three years ago that I wouldn’t live.
“But I am and once again I proved the world wrong because I’m walking and I’m talking when we were told that I would never.
“The fact that I am swimming so very well and I’m at the Paralympics, I am just like ‘well done Lex, you have honestly come so very far’.”
Leary admitted she was so nervous before her final she didn’t want to go on the pool deck. She won comfortably from American Christie Raleigh-Crossley and Brazil’s Mariana Ribeiro before her dancing and singing had a huge audience at La Defense Arena eating from the palm of her hand. She revealed that during her 111-day hospital stay, a fortune teller had said she would go to the Paralympics.
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