When faced with accessibility issues, Leanne Taylor knows she can react in a couple of ways.
A member of the disabled community, she can take offence and get frustrated.
Another option — and more in line with her character — is to be thankful that, overall, the world is making changes to improve access. Each day, she knows, is better than the last.
Which is the appreciative approach Taylor brings to the relatively recent news that the Canadian government has promised to finally provide funding for pregnant high-performance athletes. In the past, national team moms-to-be needed to resort to declaring themselves injured to remain in the funding stream.
Now, financial support is ensured for carded athletes during and after pregnancy.
This, of course, is music to Taylor’s ears. A wheelchair para-triathlete — and a bronze medallist at the 2024 Paralympics — she is expecting her first baby this summer.
Much like her attitude towards accessibility pitfalls — rather than rage at slow-in-coming upgrades, rather than shake her fists and shout, “About time!” — she prefers to applaud the evolution of support for female athletes.
“Because we are moving in the right direction — encouraging it will do more to continue it,” Taylor says while celebrating International Women’s Day. “From our point of view, we’re really grateful for the women who came before those policy changes, because that’s what it took. To take time off, have their families, come back, win again, and demonstrate that it can be done — that (having a child) is not the end of someone’s career.”
The funding revamp is considered a significant step towards gender equity. “We feel really different than athletes 10 years ago,” she says. “It wasn’t that long ago that it was very, very different.”
Now, instead of worrying about hiding her pregnancy — or even her desire to start a family — the Oak Bluff, Man., resident knew she could inform Team Canada coaches and staff of her plans. Boiled down — have a baby, return to form, qualify for the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
“The idea that you can say that honestly and everyone can communicate and be on the same page … it’s totally new that sport organizations are treating it that way,” added Taylor.
For triathletes, another radical shift arrived in January 2023.
That’s when World Triathlon offered a point freeze for pregnant competitors. So when Taylor informs the sport’s governing body that she’s not racing because she’s expecting, her world ranking — No. 3 currently — will be locked in till she returns.
Modernized guidelines, beyond funding and ranking implications, have changed the conversation, according to Taylor. Once upon a time, female athletes might lose sponsorships when they became pregnant. “That doesn’t need to be the case anymore,” she says. “We’ve reached out proactively to all my sponsors and told them I’m going to have a baby, I’m going to come back, and we can continue to work together.”
Taylor, however, does not intend to be out of action for long. She hopes to return for the 2025 World Para Triathlon Championships in Australia — in October, only three months after delivering her baby.
She knows it’s ambitious.
“There are examples of women who have done Ironmans in that timeline,” says Taylor. “Getting back to the start line would be a huge accomplishment. We have it on our calendar. We’re leaving it there as a race that’s a goal, just to keep me pushing.”
Not that Leanne Taylor has ever required much pushing.
Only eight months after a July 2018 mountain-biking mishap paralyzed her from the waist down, she was tackling her first race — the Paratriathlon American Championships. Before arriving in Sarasota, Fla., for the event, she’d never even ridden her hand-cycle outside. No matter.
“I really enjoyed it. I was totally hooked.”
It had been invigorating to sweat and compete, to set a target and aim for it. All of that matters, then and now.
“It gave me hope and something to control,” she says. “For people whose injury doesn’t allow them to have some kind of functional recovery, it’s like, ‘What are you working towards?’ Working towards success in sports made me feel confident — being able to control an outcome. You can lose a lot of that when you’re injured.”
As an elite presence, Taylor broke out in 2024. She finished first, second, first, second in four international events leading up to the Paralympics. And to cap off a season to remember – a bronze medal in Paris 2024.
“To have the result I did was even more special, just have been able to dig that deep,” said Taylor who was not feeling well heading into the race.
Joining her on the podium that memorable day were two well-established athletes — Australian Lauren Parker and American Kendall Gretsch.
Meaningful? Unbelievably so.
Because when Taylor had been recovering in a Winnipeg hospital after her accident, wondering where life was going to take her, she began to scour social media for insight into para sports.
“And those were the women I was stalking on Instagram, like, ‘These girls are so cool — with what they’ve done, with what life has dealt them.’ It was special to share the podium with the girls I looked up to years before.”
That, without doubt, stands as a remarkable moment for Taylor.
But in assessing her achievements, athletically and personally, she prefers to take a step back. She talks about building strong relationships with teammates and competitors alike, about volunteering for Spinal Cord Injury Manitoba and venturing into hospitals to provide encouragement for patients.
“Those are the things that make me proud,” says Taylor. “We started this whole thing with the intention of finding happiness in my life again. That’s what I’m most proud of — I feel that we did that.
“The result I had in Paris was the cherry on top. The bigger picture is that I’ve been injured for six years and I wouldn’t go back if I had the option.”