Northern Ireland Sprinter & Commonwealth Games Medallist Leon Reid Announces Retirement
05 May 2023
Northern Ireland and Ireland Sprinter Leon Reid announces his retirement from our sport after an amazing international athletics career including a Bronze Medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the 200m.
Leon first represented Northern Ireland at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games in both the 100m and 200m, making it to the semi-finals in the 200m. Fast forward to the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Leon was determined to improve on his performance from the previous Commonwealth Games and came away with an outstanding Bronze medal in the 200m.
Following on from the success of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Leon progressed to compete with the best athletes in the world. Representing Ireland in the Toru 2021 European Indoor Championships where he was 5th in his heat, the Berlin 2018 European Outdoor Championships where he placed 7th in the final as well as the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games where he was 7th in the semi-final.
Throughout his career he has won multiple Irish 60m & 200m Indoor and 100m & 200m Outdoor titles.
Athletics NI’s Performance Lead Tom Reynolds commented on Leon’s retirement saying, “Leon is retiring having contributed a huge amount to Athletics in NI and Ireland. When he crossed the line in Gold Coast, he was Northern Ireland’s first Athletics Commonwealth Games medallist in 28 years which really put our sport in the limelight and inspired the rest of Team NI. He backed up that performance with a world class NI and Irish record of 20.27 when making the final of the European Championships in 2018 and went on to be the highest finishing Athletics Olympian in Tokyo where he once again outperformed his ranking in a Championships. I would like to thank Leon and his long time coach James Hillier for helping to raise the level of performance expectations in our sport.”
PB’s
Indoor:
60m – 6.68 (NI Record)
200m – 20.96
Outdoor:
100m – 10.30 (+1.3)
200m – 20.27 (+1.4) (NI Record)
On behalf of Athletics NI we would like to thank Leon for all the hard work he has put into Athletics in Northern Ireland, we look forward to seeing him embark on his new journey becoming a father and starting new business ventures.