GARY AHUJA
BLACK PRESS
Leah Pells has run all the way from Coquitlam and into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.
"It is a really nice way to wrap up a career that I absolutely loved," she said. "It feels very complete. It is a huge honour for me (and) it is nice to be recognized for having something that I really, really loved, and still love."
On Friday, Pells was announced as part of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame 2015 induction class. The nine individuals and one team will be formally inducted into the Hall on May 28.
While she currently lives in Coquitlam, Pells, who turned 50 last month, was born in Vancouver but moved to Langley when she was a young child. She was a part of the Langley Mustangs Track and Field Club.
She left Langley at age 18, after graduating from Langley Secondary in 1982, and wound up developing into one of Canada's best-ever female middle distance runners.
Pells represented Canada at three Olympic Games -Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000) as well as six world championships. Some of her top results include a silver medal at the 1999 Pan Am Games and a fourth-place finish in the 1,500m race in 1996, missing the podium by a mere half second.
Pells now lives in Coquitlam - she was inducted into the Coquitlam Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 - with her family.
She also wrote a book, Not About The Medal,and works as a teacher and a motivational speaker. The book chronicles her tumultuous upbringing as the child of an alcoholic mother. Her mother passed away in 2004 from complications related to her addiction.
In 2013, she received approval to teach high school students a course on understanding addiction. She said at the time that she hoped the course would help young people understand not just the physiology of addiction, but how to be more compassionate towards those who are suffering from it.
