Pho3nix Foundation is proud to announce its support of para swimmer Alexa Leary for her Paris 2024 campaign through the Pho3nix Athlete Program.
Leary came back from a life-changing accident only two years ago to win gold and silver at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships in Manchester and make a strong case for selection for the 2024 Paralympic Games. Her gold in the 100-metre freestyle was only 0.04 seconds outside of the S9 para world record – and she is passionate and determined to only do better.
Through the Pho3nix Athlete Program, Leary will receive funding that will go toward training, coaching, equipment, competition, and travel expenses to enable her to focus completely on making the Paralympics and performing at the highest level possible. This was the goal she had set her sights on even as she lay in ICU with the traumatic brain injury sustained in a high-speed cycling crash that obliterated her short-term memory and left her with weakness on the right side.
Then the 2019 Under-18 vice world triathlon champion and on the cusp of moving into longer-distance triathlon, post her accident Leary worked hard to get back into sport. Throughout her recovery journey and as she won numerous national titles and made the Australian para swimming team, she inspired fellow Australians with the “Move for Lex” campaigns to get moving and exercise.
She says, “To be honest, I was meant to pass away a few times but I fought so hard to be here… I realized early on in my rehab that I would love to start competing again and now I am. I was telling myself, ‘Look how far you have come and look what you’re doing for someone that was told that you’re never going to walk or talk again.’”
In partnering with Pho3nix she will now be able to take this to the global stage, exemplifying the Foundation’s ethos: rising above circumstance to reach for their dreams and inspire the next generation.
Leary joins a roster of trailblazers charting their respective paths toward Paris 2024 as well as over 60 Olympic and Paralympic athletes supported through past Pho3nix Athlete Program editions for Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022.