Lesley Paterson won the 2011,2012 and 2018 XTERRA Triathlon World Championships as well as the 2012 and 2018 editions of the World Triathlon Cross Championships.
23 Facts About Lesley Paterson
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Lesley Paterson co-wrote, with Ian Stokell, a screenplay based on the anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and in 2006 acquired an option on the film rights for the book.
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Lesley Paterson was born and grew up in Stirling, Scotland, the youngest of four children.
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Lesley Paterson's father was a surveyor, and her mother a hotel manager.
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Lesley Paterson chose to go to Loughborough University on the grounds that it would give her the best chance in triathlon.
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Lesley Paterson studied English and drama as an undergraduate at Loughborough, and obtained a master's degree in theatre at San Diego State University.
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Lesley Paterson won the Scottish Junior Championships in 1997, and finished 15th in the 1999 World Junior Triathlon Championships.
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Lesley Paterson had dreams of qualifying for the Olympics, but her poor swim performance made it impossible to do well in draft-legal races such as the ITU races needed to qualify for the Olympics.
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Lesley Paterson did not take up triathlon again until 2007, when on returning to Scotland for a summer holiday she entered the Scottish National Championships, and won the race.
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On 23 October 2011, Lesley Paterson won her first XTERRA World Championship in Kapalua, Maui, despite suffering a flat tyre on the bike stage, and falling on the run stage.
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Lesley Paterson retained her title in 2012, winning by almost four minutes over Barbara Riveros.
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In 2013, Lesley Paterson gained silver medals in both the XTERRA World Championship and the ITU Cross Triathlon World Championship.
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Lesley Paterson's training was then interrupted by chronic Lyme disease, which almost completely prevented her racing in 2014 and the first part of 2015; the long-term effects of the disease continued to cause her pain while racing for many years.
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Lesley Paterson thought this might mean the end to her dream of winning an Oscar, but then her husband pointed out that she was "very good at the one-arm drill in the water" and suggested she race the swim stage using only one arm.
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Lesley Paterson studied drama as an undergraduate and completed a master's degree in theatre.
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Lesley Paterson then began a career in acting, screenwriting and producing.
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Lesley Paterson starred in the video for David Gray's song "Alibi".
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Lesley Paterson gave up acting after 3 years of trying, saying she was a "hopeless actor".
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Lesley Paterson found a writing-producing partner, triathlete and former journalist Ian Stokell.
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Lesley Paterson had loved the anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque since she had studied it as a set text at school, a love shared by her screenwriting partner Stokell.
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Lesley Paterson and Stokell re-read the book together, and both realised there was an opportunity to re-make the film using modern technology.
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Lesley Paterson used her race winnings to help finance the option, but she and her husband Simon Marshall had to remortgage their house.
23.
Lesley Paterson had always wanted a German director, because she thought only a German could be true to the story of Remarque's book: "Unlike us, they are filled with shame about what happened".