“Although I’m on the firing point pulling the trigger, it is a massive team effort. Everybody plays an important role and it all knits together.”
Lesley Stewart’s journey has been fraught with personal and sporting tragedy, but with the help of staff at the sportscotland institute of sport (SIS) and Scottish Target Shooting (STS), she realised her dream of competing at a Paralympics.
Life was very different for the Blairgowrie shooter in 2004, sport wasn’t looking like it would be part of her future. She was serving in the military police in the army, just after completing a tour of Iraq the previous year. But a pulled muscle in her back during a routine combat fitness test would change her life forever.
Within a week her left ankle had turned fully inward. After a lot of investigating, she was diagnosed with dystonia, which meant that when she pulled the muscle in her back her brain malfunctioned at the same time and sent the signal to the wrong part of the body. Instead of the back going into spasm, Lesley’s ankle went into permanent spasm.
The ankle wouldn’t release, several operations to save it ultimately failed and Lesley had to have a below knee amputation. Unfortunately, the dystonia then moved to the knee joint and it became disformed as well
The dystonia was so severe that it was decided Lesley needed a life-or-death brain operation. Eventually she was able to start rehab at Military rehabilitation unit, Headley Court, where she first took up shooting as a sport and quickly shone.
Lesley said: “Leaving the military through a medical discharge is crushing.
"You’re lost for a while and you wonder what you’re going to do and how you will manage, especially if you leave with a disability that you didn’t go in with. Sport has been my saviour in a way.”
It was looking like Lesley would compete at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. But with a couple of shoots left to try to qualify, a bad infection in her below knee stump led to nearly a year in hospital and an above knee amputation.
She spent nearly a year in hospital and wasn’t able to return to shooting until 2019. She considered giving up the sport she had come to love, but instead of that being the end of the story, this turned out to be the start of a wonderful chapter.
Lesley started working closely with a team of experts from SIS, and alongside STS Performance Coach, Andrew Ross, they were charged with getting Lesley ready for a tilt at qualification for Tokyo 2020.
Paula Jarvie (Performance Lifestyle Adviser), Angela Duncan (Sport Doctor), Maggie Hendry (Physiotherapist), Ailis Robertson (Nutritionist), Cian McGinley (Performance Physiologist) and Luke Birmingham (Senior Physical Preparation Coach) formed Lesley’s support team at the sportscotland institute of sport. The team connected regularly with Lesley’s support team at British Shooting to coordinate Lesley’s preparation.
The one-year delay to the Paralympics due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic worked in Lesley’s favour. Paris 2024 had been the original goal due to the length of time she had been away from the sport, in hospital and doing rehab.
Luke Birmingham, recalls just how far away Lesley was from being ready to compete in 2019, he said:
“Lesley had been off her feet for a long time so at the start the work we did was making sure she got back to health.
“We were making sure she had muscle mass to be able to get herself up and she had enough strength to get around. But Lesley is so easy to work with, she’s so determined to do everything as well as she can so that makes my job so much easier.”
Slowly but surely Lesley worked her way back towards her best. That hard work was rewarded in an all or nothing shoot at the World Shooting Para Sport World Cup in Peru. It was Lesley’s last chance to qualify for Tokyo, and she took it winning a bronze medal.
The joy quickly turned to focus for Lesley and her support team. Lesley only had eight weeks between qualifying and leaving for Tokyo. They had to cram what would usually be months or even years of preparation into two months.
That included training in a heat chamber at Napier University in Edinburgh to help Lesley acclimatise to the heat she would be competing in and develop strategies for coping with it. Cian McGinley and Dr Angela Duncan formed a travel plan for Lesley which included a plan for adjusting her sleep patterns to reduce the impact of jet lag.
Lesley explained: “There was quite a bit of training in Aberdeen with Andrew (Ross) my coach. There was nothing too technical, just upping my performance training. Running mock matches, mock finals, doing distraction training.
“I did a lot of work with Luke in the gym. Not trying to bulk up just maintaining the level I was. A lot of stretches and other work to keep me going but being wary of not causing any injuries or strains.
“The staff were conscious of not overloading me with information. Some athletes have two years to prepare, I had eight weeks so they were conscious of not burning me out. I think we struck the right balance and the travel plan made a big difference.”
Luke added: “Towards Tokyo we were coming up with strategies to help her shoot, being able to find good postures when she’s in position for hours and how she recovers after being so still for so long to avoid stiffness as much as possible.”
Paula’s remit was helping Lesley to feel as comfortable as possible in Tokyo to ensure she could stay in the right frame of mind to compete. While she was in Tokyo Lesley had daily video calls with coach Andrew Ross.
She said: “As well as planning to avoid jet lag as much as possible we were focused on helping Lesley create a home from home. The covid restrictions meant athletes were going to be isolated more than normal at the Games so we did a lot of work on coping strategies for that. We got an organised plan in place for how Lesley would manage her time and keep herself mentally in the right place.”
The planning and preparation paid off as Lesley shot an international personal best and a 13th placed finish at a Paralympics when the odds had been stacked firmly against her qualifying.
And Lesley says the Paralympic experience has given her the edge to go again for the Paris 2024 cycle, she’ll once again have her support team’s help every step of the way, something Lesley says plays a pivotal role in her career as an athlete.
She said:
“It was a massive experience that’s what every athlete dreams of, to get to a Paralympics or an Olympics. Once it was finished, it’s kind of addictive. Once you’ve been and experienced it and after a couple of weeks at home you think ‘oh I want more’.
“For me having this level of support, I see a massive difference. It takes a lot of pressure off your shoulders. Knowing that other people have your back and they are allowing you to focus on what you need to focus on, allowing me the opportunity to perform at my best level. It’s so much less to think about.”
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