Leslie claimed silver with a strong swim in the men’s 50m backstroke S4 at the world para championships in Singapore yesterday.
The defending champion looked sharp in his heat, qualifying comfortably for the final as the second-fastest swimmer in 43.50sec.
In the final, the 35-year-old exploded off the wall and settled into his trademark high stroke rate to keep himself in contention early.
Leslie surged through alongside Roman Zhdanov (neutral) over the final 25m.
Zhdanov touched first in a championship-record time of 41.47sec. Leslie was just behind to win silver in 42.54sec, his fastest time since 2022. Arnost Petracek (Czech Republic) held on for bronze in 44.13sec.
Leslie said he was "really happy" with his effort a year after not swimming as well as he had hoped at the Paris Paralympics.
"This year has been all about redemption from Paris," he said.
"Definitely wasn’t happy with how I did in Paris — particularly in the 50m back, which was my last race there — and I know I’m a better swimmer than what I did there.
“I feel like I’ve redeemed myself in that race and can move forward, and probably let go of a bit of baggage from last year, which is nice.”
Leslie, competing in his eighth world championships, was thrilled with the improvement achieved between heat and final.
“I’m really stoked with that outcome. Changing a whole second from heat to final is really good in the 50m back and shows the insights we got from our analysis. We executed what we’ve been doing in training and at the gym.”
