Check
out a new mini TV show being aired on the Shaw cable network
called 'On Edge'. Marianne and her friend Ekat from the team
are primarily featured during a training camp this past summer at Mt
Hood, in Oregon, USA.
December
2011: Marianne was supposed to attended her first
World Cup race to be held in Carezza,
Italy, However it was postponed to late
December, due to the lack of snow. This was not good news to
the wallet. Her flights that were paid for up to the
Christmas period all had to be rearranged. Due to fees and
re-booking closer to Christmas the flights cost an
additional $1100, this on top of the $1800 already spent on
them. This is very frustrating from our point of view but unfortunately
all part of the game......Anyways I digress.....So the first
race was now to be a NorAm and was in Colorado, USA at Steamboat
Springs. Marianne in the past has had success here and she
always loves the night races that they host each year. The
race was a PGS. She had 2 good qualifying runs placing 3rd going
into the head to head finals. She continued her good racing
knocking out the competitors one by one until she raced the Olympic champion from the Netherlands. In this
round she slipped, due to a momentary lapse of concentration
and was beaten. She then had to race in the small finals for
3rd or 4th position. This round she got her concentration
back and went on to win the bronze medal against Alexandre
Khrol from Poland and ended up on the
podium. (Video) The
next day was a PSL, but in this race she was having problems slipping again. She could not
understand why she was having these problems, the same as in
Copper the month prior, as mentally she
was up after doing so well the day before. The coaches
reviewed some video footage of the race and it was found
that her slalom board was finished. There was no or very
little bounce left. She did not like using the excuse of
blaming the equipment but it seems that it did have something to do with
these results in the PSL this time around.
From
this race she went onto a World Cup race being held in
Telluride, USA. She continued with her good riding and
managed to get a second run. (Video).
This was her objective this
season. To get a second run you have to qualify in the top 16
of the course you were in. This she did. After the second run the times are combined to give
you your placing. The top 16 combined times go into the
finals and the remaining 16 get placed from 17 to 32.
Marianne was half a second from the 16 spot resulting in
finishing 19th.
She was very happy with this result, being also that she was the
second fastest Canadian in the race. This put her in a good
position for the next World cup which was being held in
Carezza Italy, This was the postponed race. She jumped on
the plane to Italy for a quick 5 day trip that included a PGS and a
PSL race. The PGS was won by fellow Canadian Caroline Calve
from Quebec, History being made in that she is the first Canadian girl to win a world cup.
Marianne finished again as the second fastest Canadian in
32nd. Although not as high as she wished she did get a second run so was still fairly
happy with this. The following day a PSL, now on a new test
snowboard, to replace the worn out one that she was having
problems with. Once again she performed well getting
two runs in and finished as the top Canadian girl in 20th.
She
returned to Canada for the Christmas holidays, and has had a
relaxing break. She is now looking forward to returning to
Europe in early January with the hope of continuing her good
results in 3 more upcoming World Cup races.
Mid
November 2011: The races at Copper mountain got
off to a rocky start. Both the PGS and PSL results were disappointing
and not what she had hoped for. Her head was in the game,
she was confident, but something didn't click.
November
2011: The first race of the season is approaching
and Marianne is hard at it training in Vail, Colorado. She
is having a good camp and the sports psychology is helping
her concentrate. Her first race is at Copper Mountain and
she is getting excited to get back to it. A short video
from her training in Vail.
October
2011: New Bindings from YYZCanuck.
Thanks for your continued help.
August
2011: Marianne has finished working this summer
at the Calgary Tennis Club to attend a snowboard camp in
Oregon, USA. It is her first time back on snow since the
spring. During her off time she has been working very hard
in the gym. She has also attended some sessions with a sports
psychologist where it was discovered she has trouble focusing.
Apparently her brain is working 100 times faster than normal
so has difficulty processing the information. Together with
the doctor they have come up with a program and she is presently
testing all this out on this camp. I am interested to find
out how this will all work out...fingers crossed...but first
reports from her is very positive....
Carve
mini TV series. Features the racers from Calgary Snowboard
Club. Here are a couple where Marianne is featured.
2011 Recent
Achievements:
2011 Lake
Louise Canadian Nationals - 3rd in Slalom - 4th in Giant Slalom
2011 Swiss Nationals - 9th
2011 Ontario Provincials - 1st
2011 Le Relais, Quebec NorAm Cup - 3rd
Marianne had
a delayed start to the season, due to the fact that whilst she
was cross training playing soccer, she tore some ligaments
quite severely in her ankle, missing the first few races. This has since come
back to haunt her as rumours were that she was in line to receive funding from
Sport Canada by being carded. Apparently she did not get
enough NorAm points to beat out some of her competitors and
the funding went elsewhere. The sad thing is she came back
strong at the end of the season winning the provincial
championships and at the Canadian
Nationals placed 3rd in parallel slalom and 4th in parallel
giant slalom. Guess these races don't count in the big
scheme of things and the main criteria seems to be Fis points.
I totally understand why they have to do this, and realize there is a little more to this than meets the eye....but I
wish sometimes someone would take the big picture and not
just rely on a narrow minded point system.
(Yes...I am venting now....LOL...but if it cost you $45000 a
year wouldn't you...Thankyou to all our Creekside
B&B guests...keep on coming we need you....). Anyways I digress.
Looking forward to the upcoming 2012 season.. Good
luck Marianne.
2010
Vancouver Olympics. Invited Forerunner Women's PGS
2010 FIS/World
cup races in Europe and N. America. Best finish 7th
2009
December. USA. Steamboat Springs 2nd
2009 World Cup
Race Stoneham, Quebec 24th
2007 Canada
Winter Games Gold Medal Winner PGS
2007 World
Junior Championships, Austria. 11th PSL, 12th PGS
2nd in
PSL and PGS Canadian Juniors 2006 / 2007
Canadian
Junior Champion PGS 2005 / 2006 Season .
Canadian National Team
HolidayRentalsCanada.ca
is proud to support Marianne in her Olympic
quest.
Marianne's personal blog. Keep up to date
with her weekly features
March
2010... A special thankyou to Barbara and Brian Cooper of
Sutton Reality, Walkers Line in Burlington who made a
donation to Marianne. Barbara and Brian recently worked with
clients who stayed at Creekside B&B. They are hard
working and very kind people. We can highly recommend them
and be sure to mention you were referred via Marianne
Leeson. Check out their website
for more information.
2010
Winter Olympics have now finished so the focus returns to
Marianne's season.
February 2010..
Marianne attended the Canadian Winter Olympics in Vancouver
as a forerunner for the women's PGS race. This was a blast
as she raced in front of thousands of excited spectators who
were cheering every move. The positive feedback she felt
together with having a great experience has given her a
boost and is waiting to get back to racing.
Marianne
started off the season by training for 6 weeks in New
Zealand in August of 09. This was a good camp as she felt
she was ready to compete strongly. For this winter season
she was invited to attend the world cup races throughout
Europe and N.America. This was important as she was looking
at the wild card spot for the Olympic team. However this put
a lot of additional pressure on Marianne, on top of racing
in a circuit she was new at. As a result Marianne started to
fall on a few of the races as she was focusing on the end
result and not the race. This has been quite a learning
season for her, how to deal with adversity and the
additional stress. Marianne is now looking at exploring some
sessions with a sports psychologist and even attending some
Yoga to help with her concentration.
Continuous
Thanks have to go to Mark Palmer at Peoplewerx.comwho has developed and maintains MarianneLeeson.com
Sometimes
Injuries have a funny way of developing. There are a couple
of websites that have included Marianne's information.
One is from some new Canadians who were guests at
Creekside B&B and have now emigrated from Germany.
They had the pleasure of meeting Marianne whilst she was
badly injured with her leg and was laid up at home. The
webpage can be found at http://www.come2canada.info/site/Sponsoring.html
The
second website Brace
Yourself OrthopaedicsSandro Ferrari is a doctor who has treated a number of
professional level athletes. A couple of years ago he also
treated Marianne when she broke her collar bone. He helped
her by supplying a bone healing machine and also generously
gave her a donation towards a training camp. Sandro now has
an additional sideline business featuring custom made golf
clubs and hockey sticks. Check his website
for additional information.
Summer 2009
Marianne has been
working hard all summer both in the gym and at her job at
the tennis club. She has already attended a summer training
camp in Whistler and stayed a few extra days to train with
the National team. In August she will be traveling to New
Zealand for a 5 week camp with her team and coach Mark
Ballard. Marianne was again invited onto the National
development team and is hoping to be able to attend some
world cup races this fall / winter in Europe and USA. These
are important races as they are all qualifiers for the
Vancouver winter Olympics. There is one spot left up for
grabs between the 3 snowboard disciplines so the competition
will be extremely tough. However she is going into the
season well prepared and with a good mental attitude so she
will give it her all.
April
2009
Marianne was able
to come home after racing in the Nationals at Mont Tremblant.
The snow was very
challenging at Mont Tremblant due to end of season warmth.
Marianne placed
8th in PSL and 14th in PGS. As Marianne was home for a few
days we took advantage and invited friends and family to
a fundraising function. It was very successful with enough
funds to cover one of her summer camps. Thankyou to all
that helped make this a success.
The following
day Marianne was invited to speak at the Milton Heights
Racing Club Banquet. She did a wonderful job informing many
of the new and old members alike who she is and what she
is doing with her snowboarding career. During the banquet
they held a 50/50 draw for her and she was very thankful
to them for this. Marianne now returns to Calgary to start
a new season of training starting right away with a fitness
evaluation. She is also moving into accommodation by herself
in a basement apartment so this will be different for her
as she has been used to living with others.
March
2009
Marianne has been
featured in a local sports Magazine SportsXpress.
She was also featured on the cover for the Burlington west
GTA area.
Marianne was invited
to race at 2 Canadian World cup races, the first being on
the Olympic hill in Vancouver. Unfortunately due to snow
conditions and the prep to the race hill, the race was cancelled.
This was very unfortunate, not only for the cost involved
to get there and stay there, but also because these races
do not come around very often and to lose out the opportunity
to race against the best in the world was disappointing
to say the least. However the second world cup race in Quebec
did go ahead as scheduled. In this race she did us proud.
It was her mission to get 2 runs. In a world cup race only
the top 16 of each course (blue course and red course) get
a second run. She had never achieved this before in her
2 previous world cup starts. On this occasion not only did
she qualify for a second run but she also had the fastest
run for the Canadian girls. This was a great mental boost
for her and she was ready to perform well in the second
run. At the start gate there is a series of beeps with the
eventual opening of the gate. Marianne tried to start her
run on the exact time that the gate opened , but in the
keenness of it barged the metal gates causing them to lock
momentarily. She bounced back off the gate and stood there
not knowing what hit her. She remembers hearing the coaches
yell for her to GO. She did and was a few gates behind the
girl in the opposite course, who happened to be Canadian
Alexa Loo, our most experienced racer. She had a fantastic
run and nearly caught up to Alexa. As this was a timed run
and not head to head competition she did not have to pass
the other girl but obviously lost a large amount of time
due to the barging of the gate. However her result was still
good and even though she didn't get into the finals which
would have been amazing, she still finished 24th only a
couple of spots behind 2 of our Canadian team racers. Marianne
started the race ranked 44th. Marianne is now itching to
compete at this level and is patiently waiting for the day
she gets invited to more World cup races.
November 2008.
Marianne chosen to go on Quest For Gold Lottery Ticket.
A lottery to support
Ontario athletes. For $20 you receive 5 lottery tickets
with a 1 in 3 chance of winning.
Gold
medal Winner. It was so cold that the racers did not remove
their outer clothing for the race.
Dad's Blog of events..
Recent
News updates:
November
2008
Marianne attended
the launch of the new Quest for Gold Lottery Tickets in
London Ontario. (Copy of ticket at top of page).
She was chosen
to go on one of the tickets and is featured on the KENO
ticket. For $20 you receive a package with 5 lottery tickets
inside and a 1 in 3 chances to win a prize. The funding
from these tickets helps many Ontario athletes, and Marianne
has been the recipient of some funding from this lottery.
This is a big help as it enables Marianne to attend some
camps that she would not normally be able to afford to do
so.
Marianne has been
to Farnham Glacier in BC 3 times this fall and is anticipating
her first race of the season at Copper Mountain in Colorado
later this month. She flies to Denver in a few days to continue
her training before the race. Anyway's go out and get a
Quest for Gold ticket and support these athletes. Check
out Marianne's picture on the Keno ticket.
Fall 2008
After being away for over a year Marianne
is now back, on snow, training hard. During her year off
snow she maintained her strength working out at the gym.
Her recovery from her injury has taken a long time, but
that was expected after such a serious injury. Anyway's
already this Summer and Fall she has been to Oregon in the
States, to Mt Hutt in New Zealand and to Farnham Glacier,
in BC, the same place she had her injury. Two more camps
to Farnham are scheduled for the next month before her first
race in Colorado in November.
Ontario's
Quest for Gold lottery will be using a photograph of
Marianne and featured on the front of the Lottery ticket
for this winter season. That should be exciting for her.
The photo they are using can be found at the bottom of this
page. The tickets are $20 each. The odds of winning a prize
is something like 3 to 1 so quite good. The funds from these
tickets go to help all Ontario's athletes who are on the
road to the Olympics.
Another project in the works (MarianneLeeson.com)
going live soon, is a website being developed for Marianne
by Mark Palmer of Peoplewerx
and the Galuche family. Many Thanks go to all of them
for all their work. The website is intended to get all the
recent news out on Marianne in her blog, some information
about her and also a page about various forms of sponsorship.
Now that she is living and training in Calgary her training
costs are going through the roof. She has been working during
the summer months to help offset some of the expense. However
HolidayRentalsCanada.ca , alias Mum and Dad, are trying
to assist with our B&B and new Tent Trailer business,
but it would be nice if she could focus on training all
summer instead of having to work. However we are not complaining
as we knew what to expect going into this, and thankfully
Marianne has received some help from friends in the various
ways of fundraising. She also received some money at the
end of the winter from the Quest for Gold Lottery. Recently,
out of over 500 athletes that applied, she was one of less
than 40 to be given a grant from FAST the Canada Games organization.
These grants help and this year she was able to go to New
Zealand to get back onto winter snow after a long time off.
She is now really
focused and looking forward to the race season. Her goals
are to still get to the Olympics, but due to her injury
realistically we are now looking to 2014 in Russia. The
games on home turf in Vancouver 2010 would have been nice
and at this time are not written off. The chances of making
it onto the National team in time, to get the world cup
results she needs, maybe pushing it. However from what I
am hearing she is coming back super strong. Lets keep our
fingers crossed.
Summer
training 2007
Marianne sustained a serious injury
during a training camp at Farnham in BC in June. She has
a spiral fracture of the tibia and fibula but looks to be
back on snow and racing by January 2008.
The
photo below was taken at Farnham the week before her injury.
Here the group are hiking the mountain looking for powder.
Seems to me that they are surrounded in it.....!!
Season
is now over for 2006 / 07.
Marianne had a
good progressive season with a few podiums and
a Gold medal win at the Canada Winter Games. (Photo's above.)
Her last event of the season was the World Junior Championships
in Bad Gastein, Austria. In the PGS she finished 11th, but
she wasn't completely satisfied with her riding, and felt
that she could have had a better result. The following day
in the PSL she finished 12th. However in contrast to the
day before, Marianne felt as if she'd ridden to the best
of her ability, and was very satisfied with her result.
From Dad's point
of view she is riding very well and I have noticed a big
change in her riding ability since the beginning of the
season. She is very committed, and physically very strong,
working out in the gym most days, as well as on snow training.
Canada
Winter Games 2007. Yukon
Snowboarding was
introduced to The Canada Winter Games in 2007. In PGS Marianne
is the first female recipient of the Gold medal, together
with Dan Haines of Calgary for the boys.
Burlington
Post has written a newspaper article on Marianne's win
which you can read by clicking newspaper link. The Photo
below is the Ontario Podium winners. Marianne 1st, Tom Snarr
3rd, and Claire Merry 3rd. Congratulations to all three.
.
Off season
Camps.
As of May 2007
Marianne has attended 2 camps since the end of the competitive
season. The latest at Whistler with the National team, coached
by Mark Fawcett.
and previously with the Calgary
Snowboard Club coached by Mark Ballard. Marianne is
working hard and is hoping to attend as many camps as possible
throughout the summer of 2007 . Marianne
also received some funding from the Ontario Quest for Gold
Lottery, and we are very grateful for that. It will enable
Marianne to continue with her training in the off season.
At this point we are very grateful
to all our friends who support Marianne. We have some form
of a fundraiser for her each year, and our friends are continually
helping out and digging into their pockets. Thank you all
again. Thanks also to many of the local ski resorts, shops,
restaurants etc who support our fundraising efforts.. If
you are looking for snowboard racing equipment then check
out Dave and Andrea at www.yyzcanuck.com
January
18 2007
After
the Christmas break at home, Marianne
flew back to Colorado, to Steamboat Springs, for another
training session with the National Team, followed by PGS
and PSL competitions at that venue. The point value of the
races was high, so her 13th and 10th place finishes respectively,
gave her reasonably high points. From there Marianne returned
to Quebec for another race in the Canadian Open Snowboard
Tour. http://csf.ca/cost/.
She had a great showing in these events, posting the fastest
single run times. In the PGS she stood first after the qualifiers,
but was bumped down to 5th in the knock out rounds, when
she slipped out in the semi final run. The next day in the
PSL, Marianne was second after the qualifiers, and subsequently
advanced through the knock out competition to the gold medal
final against Constance Boivert. It was a very exciting
final with Marianne winning the first run slightly ahead.
On the second run Constance was just in front when Marianne,
trying to compensate, took a gate too tight and slipped
out. Congrats to Constance it was a great race. Marianne
finished 2nd and rode fantastically all day. (Dad was very
proud...!!!)
2
months of training and a couple of races later. Marianne
has had competitions in Colorado and Quebec. She trained
with the National team at Copper Mountain in Colorado, and
had a great week. She feels she's progressing well on her
new equipment, but was a little disappointed in the two
26th place finishes there.
Marianne
had great success however at the races in Mont Blanc, Quebec,
where she placed 4th in both the Slalom and the GS.
The
team moved from Kaprun, Austria to Saas
Fee Switzerland, because of heavy rains which washed
away 30cms of snow. Marianne says she's getting some great
training and is having loads of fun. She says she's exhausted
from the early mornings, snowboarding, and then dry land
training afterwards. The team traveled to Soelden last weekend
to support fellow Canadian national team athletes
at a World Cup race.
October
16th 2006
Marianne left
for Europe training camp with the Calgary Snowboard Club.
October
1st 2006
Fundraiser
was a great success with over 80 friends attending. Many
items were donated for the silent auction. A fun night was
had by all. Thanks to everyone who supported Marianne.
Received
news that Marianne is to represent Ontario at the Canadian
Winter Games to be held in the Yukon in February and
March 2007.
August
24 2006
Fundraiser
for Marianne. September 29th.
Silent
Auction prizes include overnight trip to Holiday
Valley, breakfast and skiing tickets for 2. Condo
accommodation in Collingwood for 3 weeknights and many more
items being added daily.
August
16 - 24 2006
Training
camp with National Team at Mount Hood. Oregon, Usa.
A
special Thank you to Sandro Ferrari,
at
Brace Yourself Orthopedics whose donation
helped make this camp possible.
June
2006
Training
camp with National Team in Whistler, BC, Canada.
