Batley Winter Olympian Leon Greenwood shares keys to success to inspire next generation

Just being on the plane to Italy for last month’s sporting extravaganza with his fellow Team GB participants was the realisation of a life-long dream for the former Spen Valley High School pupil.

And the people of Batley, Spen and Dewsbury were then allowed to dream with him as they cheered him on from their sofas as he flew down the twisty iced track at speeds of up to 90mph.

His motivational story, and journey, of a little boy from Carlinghow refusing to let setbacks derail him, resonated with the entire North Kirklees community.

In the end, he may not have brought home a medal from the four-man bobsleigh event, but Leon returned to the UK having succeeded in what he said he wanted to do.

“There’s being an Olympian but there’s a responsibility I feel I have to carry,” Leon said. “And the key thing for me is to use the platform I have got to do as much as I can.”

And the Batley hero has laid out his own keys to success should youngsters - or any member of the Dewsbury, Batley and Spen community - have dreams of their own.

“The first thing is belief,” Leon said. “You have got to believe in yourself. They are very simple words but self-doubt is going to give you bad energy. You want good energy and to have that you need a lot of self-belief.

“The second thing is comparing yourselves to others in a positive way, not in a negative way.

“And stay in your lane. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing, just focus on you.”

Revealing his own motto which he puts into practice on a daily basis, he added: “Visualise it, work for it, make it happen. It works for everything.

“Visualise the goal. For me, I visualised myself at the Olympics. I visualised my daughter and my partner there shouting for me.

“Work for it was me going to training every day, being consistent and doing everything I could to be better. Every Sunday I would write down my weekly plan down to the tee, exactly what I’m doing, eating, and all the timings. It becomes a routine, every week.

“And making it happen for me, the end goal, was the Olympics. Going there, being brave and doing the job.

“The Olympics is quite niche but for most people it could be about getting a job or doing well in an exam.

“Your dream is going to be different to mine, but if you put your best foot forward and you really believe you can do it, anything can happen.”