By Jessica Anstice
Hampton Park’s young snowboarder Leonidas Tieu represented his school, St Kevin’s Primary School at the Victorian Interschools Snowsports Championships held at Mt Buller on 22 August.
Leo won Gold in the Giant Slalom.
On 12 August with Golds in both Pro Slalom and Giant Slalom, Leo was the overall winner of the 2018 Division 5 Land Rover King of The Mountain series held at Mt Buller.
“We are enormously proud of Leo’s achievements in his chosen sport and love of snowboarding,” St Kevin’s Primary School principal Anni Miers said.
“We try to ensure that all students have opportunities to pursue their interests by providing a wide range of sporting initiatives in our curriculum both individual and team based.
“As a result our children are very fit and enthusiastic when others succeed.”
Nationals unfortunately is held at Perisher this season so Leo was not going to attend until this news was seen on social media by local businesses IWIM motors and Australasian Technical Services who generously sponsored Leo’s trip.
Leo’s father, Danny Tieu first took Leo to the snow when he was three years old.
“The following year Leo wanted to try snowboarding so by amazing fortune I went into Macs Snow Sports in Moorabin and spoke to Tania and Troy who I now consider to be great friends,” Mr Tieu said.
“They set us up with gear and have since supplied Leo all his gear.
“The last few years snowboarding has given him an outlet in what was an extremely tough time in his young life due to family issues.”
As a full time single father, Mr Tieu has done all he can do as far as getting Leo to the snow most weekends.
Painful 3am Sunday starts for day trips were the norm until Snowgum Deletite Apartments in Merrijig sponsored Leo accommodation to stay in over the winter.
“Financially we were never in a position to do lessons or any type of squad training so Leo resorted to hundreds of hours of YouTube snowboarding tutorials,” Mr Tieu said.
“And fortunately Leo met great people along the way such as his sport heroes Australian Olympian Cameron Bolton and National Champion Harvey Edmanson who have occasionally given Leo tips.
