SQUASH - Harry Leitch selected for Commonwealth Games
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) and Scottish Squash have announced the six players (four men and two women) selected to represent Team Scotland in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles events. The squad competing in Delhi later this year includes Cambridge postgraduate student, Harry Leitch.
Harry was born and bred in Edinburgh. With the world class support afforded him by the Heriot-Watt Squash Academy and the East of Scotland Institute of Sport he became Scotland's number 1 junior with representative honours at European and World Championship level. In 2003, he moved south of the border to study medicine at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Within a year he achieved his first senior cap and has amassed over 40 since; at European and World Championships and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. His career best performance to date came at the Melbourne games where he, with partner John White, were quarter-finalists; only losing to the eventual gold medallists in a tense final set. Although a career highlight, the failure to win a medal has proven to be the biggest impetus behind Harry’s return to Commonwealth Games action in 2010. He will be playing with partners Alan Clyne and Lisa Aitken, in the men's and mixed doubles respectively. Preparations for the Games have included reaching the Chennai Open final in the men's doubles, as well as achieving significant victories over top Indian, English and Australian opposition in test matches and invitational events.
Outside of squash Harry is the recipient of a Senior Scholarship at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge after achieving a first class undergraduate degree in Physiology, Development and Neuroscience. He is currently enrolled on the MB/PhD programme, which combines clinical medical studies with a PhD in the scientific discipline of his choice - developmental and embryonic stem cell biology. He is undertaking his PhD in the labs of Azim Surani and Austin Smith, at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, respectively. He is also a Supervisor of Studies at Fitzwillliam College, teaching physiology and development to undergraduate medical students.
An amateur in the traditional sense of the word he has also won seven Blues in squash, is a proud Hawk and Jester, and was runner up in the British Open Amateur Championships in 2010. He is supported by the East of Scotland Institute of Sport and the David Jennens award from the Hawks' Charitable Trust. He is sponsored by Harrow.
Image courtesy of Squashsite
