Sandy Leckie

Sandy Leckie took part in the three Olympic Games in the 1960s with a best result of joint seventh in the team sabre event in 1968. He also competed in three British Empire and Commonwealth Games between 1962-70 and enjoyed considerable success. He won the individual foil gold at Perth, Australia, in 1962 when he beat the 1959 world champion Allan Jay to become the first Scottish fencing gold medallist. At Kingston, Jamaica, four years later, Leckie won the individual sabre silver medal despite a knee injury sustained in a preliminary round. He became the first Scot to win two Commonwealth Games medals.

On home soil at Edinburgh in 1970, Leckie had the honour of being Scotland´s flag bearer at the opening ceremony. It was the sixth and last time fencing was seen at the Games since its début in 1950, and Leckie added individual sabre gold and team silver to take his total to four medals, half of the entire total won by Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.

Leckie learned his fencing at Merchant Taylor´s school where he also played rugby and cricket. He was destined to have a successful fencing career after winning the 1957 British Public Schools’ junior foil and sabre titles, and he was also that year´s British junior sabre champion. In 1958 Leckie was the British junior épée champion and, after going to Oxford University to study modern languages (French and German), he was elected secretary of the Oxford University Fencing Club, and was captain in 1959/60, when he also became a double Blue. Leckie won all three weapons titles at the British Universities’ Championships.

Leckie went on to win eight British fencing titles; foil in 1961, 1965, and 1967, and sabre 1963-65 and 1967-68. After university Leckie worked in France and gained experience by training with French fencers. He also developed a passion for French wine and ran wine-tasting holidays. He later set up a wine-tasting school and became a member, and treasurer, of the Association of Wine Educators

Leckie´s younger brother George was also a fencer, and in 1959 the siblings reached the quarter-final of the World Under-21 Sabre Championships in Paris, although they both failed to make the final pool of eight. Although born in England, Sandy Leckie always regarded himself as being Scottish, while George fenced for England.