In the span of about 13 months, Brook Leigh has gone from not being able to bend his knee past 90 degrees to turning his freestyle skiing season around 180 degrees.
A Hanover High junior from Norwich, Leigh tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee during a training run in Utah in February 2016. Months of rehabilitation and working back to his prior form paid off on Sunday, when Leigh took runner-up honors in dual moguls at the U.S. Junior Freestyle Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho.
The success gives him momentum and motivation heading into U.S. Nationals this weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The competition will be older, tougher and more experienced, and Leigh harbors few illusions about achieving something of significance there. But Sunday’s success, after the year’s work, certainly brightens the forecast.
“There was definitely a curve of getting my confidence back,” the 17-year-old said this week in a phone interview from Deer Valley, Utah, where he spends his winter months competing for Wasatch Freestyle.
“I actually had a month between the divisional events and junior nationals because I missed so much of the season last year, I didn’t qualify for the NorAm Tour this year. A lot of skiers at my level were competing on that circuit, while I was at Deer Valley training on the same course I blew my knee out on.
“Over the course of that month, I was really able to not only build my confidence up to where it was before the injury, but to get faster and more confident and work on bigger tricks. Come juniors and nationals, I felt very confident and ready.”
Last week’s juniors and this weekend’s nationals mark Leigh’s second visit to both championships. He might have hit both last year had he not busted his knee a year ago Feb. 17. The knee was basically frozen at a right angle until it could be surgically repaired.
“At that point, I had already qualified for junior nationals and nationals again, but I was not able to attend, obviously, because of the knee,” Leigh said. “It’s not that uncommon (an injury), but it’s not all that common for someone as young as me.”
Leigh — who attends Hanover High in the first and fourth quarters and is a member of the Marauders’ boys soccer and lacrosse programs — had surgery two days after the accident and returned to Norwich to do much of his rehabilitation. He got the OK to return to the snow after about 5½ months, Leigh said, although he was limited to groomed trails at first.
He resumed mogul training at the end of November in British Columbia shortly before December’s U.S. freestyle team selections. Given he was only 10 months removed from surgery, Leigh wasn’t surprised that selections didn’t go all that well.
“He’s very determined,” said Rick Shanor, one of Leigh’s coaches with Wasatch Freestyle. “It sometimes takes kids who are very determined and self-motivated to get through these things. He struggled a lot.”
On top of regaining confidence in his knee, Leigh also had to learn two new tricks in order to be competitive once he returned to Wasatch’s USSA Intermountain Division freestyle meets. Shanor said Leigh needed to perfect both a back full as well as something called a cork 7 — a 720-degree off-axis spin — if he was going to find a spot near the top of any competition’s rankings.
“Brook has a great attitude, he’s very easy to work with, he’s willing to learn and he’s willing to scare himself, push his outer limits,” Shanor said. “He has great support from his parents, and he’s an all-around great kid. I love working with him.”
Leigh did well enough in Intermountain events to receive invitations to both juniors (open to ages 19 and younger) and nationals again this winter. The former didn’t start out all that well, with a 20th-place finish in men’s singles on March 16. Sunday’s duals were a different matter.
Seeded eighth in a field of nearly 100 skiers, Leigh swept through five head-to-head matchups on Sunday, using the points gained with his downhill speed — his strong suit, Shanor said — to make up for any lost points in airs or turns. The only person to stop him was Killington’s Kalman Heims, who nipped Leigh in the finals. Leigh said he beat Heims to the line by a tenth of a second, but a mistake on the first of his two jumps made the difference.
Leigh can go into Steamboat knowing he’s now ranked sixth among U.S. junior freestyle skiers and 25th overall. It’s a sign of improvement as well as one of accomplishment after what could have been a very frustrating recovery.
“My goals for nationals are basically to put myself in a position to do well on the NorAm Tour next year,” said Leigh, who has been splitting his time between Vermont and Utah for four years. “Nationals is one of the qualifiers for that. Basically, any top-20 result would put me well on my way to ski on the NorAm Tour next year.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.