009: Lesley McKenna/Blazing Trails
If you only have five minutes…
Listen to this section - Lesley talks about how she coped with the criticism she received after the Turin Olympics
Show Notes
- FIS meeting in Slovenia.
- Lesley’s average time on the road.
- GB Park & Pipe’s endless winter season.
- The process of planning the next two Olympic cycles for GB Park & Pipe.
- The structure of UK Sport and subsidiary bodies…
- … and Lesley’s role within that.
- Growing up in Aviemore.
- Lesley’s family and their roots in the 60s Scottish ski scene.
- Chick Baxter’s early Scottish ski footage.
- Lesley’s first memories of skiing.
- Scottish Pairs Disco Dancing Champion 1986.
- Early ski racing career.
- Getting hooked on the technical side of ski racing.
- Selected for the Scottish ski team.
- Doing her first season in Jackson Hole – and going on bomb patrol with the local Ski Patrol.
- First powder turns.
- Honorary member of Jackson Hole Ski Club.
- Getting injured on her first Jackson Hole downhill race…
- … which led to first interest in alternative medicine.
- Selected for the British Ski Team.
- Learning to snowboard in Aviemore with the Boardwise crew.
- The make up of the early UK snowboard scene.
- ‘I was the straightest teenager ever’.
- Clashes with the ski establishment.
- Entering the 1996 British Championships Snowboard Championships in Meribel.
- Bringing ski race tactics to snowboard racing.
- Training with the French Snowboard Team
- The 1996/1997 season in Meribel.
- On the Snowboard World Cup Tour with Melanie Leando.
- Switching to half pipe snowboarding, and just missing out on the Nagano Olympics.
- Becoming fully immersed in the snowboarding community.
- Competing in three Olympics – Salt Lake City, Turin and Vancouver.
- The pressures of Olympic competition and then effect it had on Lesley.
- Life in the Olympic Village.
- Coping with criticism post Turin.
- Setting up Chunky Knit Productions to make women’s snowboarding films.
- The camaraderie of women’s snowboarding.
- Worst injury of her career – smashed ankle.
- Moving into coaching and management with Roxy and at the Vancouver Olympics.
- Post riding career options.
- Lesley’s take on the Roxy Steph Gilmore controversy.
- Taking a full time position as Programme Manager of GB Park & Pipe.
- How communication and environment affect action sports.
- Marrying action sports culture with traditional sporting culture to create the GB Park & Pipe operational plan.
- Self-determination theory.
- How UK Sport funding works.
- The thinking behind the #ProjectPY2018 communication project
- The team’s prospects for Pyeongchang.
- How Lesley reacts to the negativity around GB Park & Pipe.
- Back in Aviemore today – building a new house.
- Founding a co-operative to develop local housing.
- The An Camas Mòr development
- Making your own opportunities.
- What Lesley would do if she wasn’t involved in snowsports.
- The case for Cairngorm to enter community ownership.
- Lesley’s biggest success – staying sane as a working mother.
- Biggest failure – not spending enough time with friends and family.
- Lesley’s last day ever snowboarding – and last trick.
- Reigning British half pipe champion.
Places Mentioned
- Portorož
- Gatwick
- Biarritz
- Beijing
- Korea
- Aviemore
- Cairngorm Mountain
- Canada
- Dundee
- Glenshee
- Glasgow
- Jackson Hole
- Whistler
- Reading Festival
- Meribel
- Nagano
- Mont Vallon
- Salt Lake City
- Turin
- Vancouver
- Colorado
- Rothiemurchus
- Braeriach
People Mentioned
- Martin Cernik
- Gary Greenshields
- Dave Brailsford
- Dan Hunt
- Chick Baxter
- Jimmy Watts
- Zoe McLean
- Travis Rice
- Simon Smith
- Justin Westcott
- Ross Dempster
- Tony Brown
- Kim McGibbon
- Jeremy Sladen
- Melanie Leando
- Xavier de le Rue
- Nicola Kant
- Mathieu Bozzetto
- Martin Freinademetz
- Scott Nixon
- Adrian Frearson
- Kelly Clark
- Heikki Sorsa
- Sian Leigh
- Jenny Jones
- Cheryl Maas
- Kjersti Buaas
- Josie McNamara
- Alison Robb
- Pat Sharples
- Hamish McKnight
- James Woods
- Paddy Mortimer
- Aimee Fuller
- Katie Ormerod
- John Wood
- Billy Morgan
- Isabel Aitken
Organisations mentioned
- FIS
- GB Park & Pipe
- UK Sport
- British Ski and Snowboard
- British Cycling
- UK Athletics
- Strath and Spey Sports Council
- Jackson Hole Ski Club
- International Snowboard Federation
- Roxy
- Chunky Knit Productions
- Highland Small Community Trust