Keynote speaker Leah Goldstein to encourage others to live a life of no limits at INSPIRE’s International Women’s Day event

UPDATE February 20, 2024 – INSPIRE has informed kawarthaNOW the International Women’s Day event scheduled for March 8, 2024 is no longer taking place, providing the following statement:

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, Inspire: The Women’s Portrait Project’s International Women’s Day Event is postponed. Refunds will be processed no later than March 31, 2024.”

 

UPDATE January 24, 2024 – Due to previously unknown contractual obligations for the NHL on the same date, Jennifer Botterill will be unable to attend the INSPIRE International Women’s Day event. The new keynote speaker will be Sammi Jo Small, former goalie for the Canadian Women’s National Hockey Team, a five-time world champion and three-time Olympian who played on two gold-medal-winning teams. Small draws on her personal experience, sharing exceptional tales of perseverance and drive, to help audiences build cohesive teams capable of taking on the world.

 

 

When Leah Goldstein takes to the podium at the Holiday Inn Waterfront in downtown Peterborough on March 8, 2024 for the International Women’s Day event hosted by not-for-profit INSPIRE, she’ll use her story of determination, dream chasing, and overcoming discrimination to do exactly that — inspire.

As a world champion kickboxer, the first female instructor to train commandos in the Israeli military, and a record-breaking endurance cyclist at over 50 years old, Goldstein has had no shortage of people telling her what she could and could not do throughout her life. But, as she’ll be sharing with the women in the room on the event day, her mental strength pushed her to achieve the goals she set for herself.

“I wasn’t going to let somebody decide for me what I can and can’t do or let someone make me feel so bad that I don’t pursue my dreams,” she says. “You can’t always run from your problems. You have to hit them straight on because, if you keep running, one day there’s nowhere to run.”

 

 

Goldstein first learned the power of the mind while attending elementary school as a child raised in Vancouver. With an accent from parents who had just emigrated from Israel, Goldstein was heavily picked on and bullied by her peers for looking and sounding different.

After seeing Bruce Lee fighting 30 people at once on a television program, Goldstein worked hard to earn a second-degree black belt in taekwondo before training in kickboxing at just 13 years of age. After disguising herself to train with and fight against the boys when women were not allowed in boxing clubs, she realized her bullies didn’t actually want to fight her, but rather were just trying to scare her.

“The whole thing was about mental strength being more powerful than physical strength,” she says, adding she never ended up having to fight with any classmates. “It gave me that confidence that I needed to stand up to people, and that’s what bullies don’t want — they want you to run. But I said to myself that day that I would never, ever run from anything in my life.”

Goldstein stuck by that promise, and after becoming a kickboxing champion at just 17 years old, she trained in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga (which combines techniques used in karate, boxing, akido, judo, and wrestling), becoming the first female instructor in the Israeli Defense Forces to train commandos before transitioning into the police force.

As a woman in the police force, she was denied entry into a particular project, and she “made noise” until she got special permission to join the all-male recruits. But those in power weren’t all welcoming of her.

“I was very fit, and I could do things that most men could do physically — I could climb and run faster than any guy with a weight-to-strength ratio,” Goldstein recalls. “I was very good and they couldn’t break me physically, so they tried to get me mentally,” she says.

Though the yelling, degradation, and torment would be enough to tear anyone down, as she promised herself in elementary school, she was not running away from her dream to work in Israeli intelligence.

“Once you get up from falling down multiple times, it’s harder to knock you down,” she says. “My motto is it doesn’t matter what you’re doing in your life, you always finish it. Don’t stop halfway because it’ll just leave you with regrets. What’s the worst that can happen? Never let anyone dictate your path.”

 

 

Goldstein’s determination, dedication, and refusal to step down led her to create change for women, as now the course is open to all, regardless of gender. But, though she was paving the way forward for other women, she was realizing it wasn’t where she was meant to be. Instead, she was drawn to the sport of duathlon while cycling to the military base.

“I didn’t realize at that point that this was my true calling,” she says. “I just felt this is the only thing that made me feel alive and I wanted to do it full-time as a profession.”

Upon first returning to Vancouver, she was everything but laughed off her bike. She was told she was too small to be a sprinter, too big to be a climber, and, at 30 years old, too old to be a professional road racing cyclist.

“It took me eight years to prove to the cycling world and the national team that I was worth the investment and I could do it,” she says.

The final push that allowed her to get there was a comment made by a race director about her poor performance. Rather than letting them hold her back, the words were the motivation Goldstein needed to move to Vernon, work hard on mastering her climb, and eventually set new records for herself.

While her efforts in martial arts and the police force both came naturally to her, racing did not.

“I proved, in the sport of pro racing, you don’t need a gift to excel in anything you choose to do, because there’s a gift we all have and it’s called the gift of work,” she says.

Though acknowledging she hit her “peak” at 38 years old, Goldstein explains she only held the acclaim for two months before she faced “the mother of all crashes” in 2005. Landing on her face, her skin was torn, her arm was dislocated, and she had damage to several bones in her body. She was airlifted to the hospital where she stayed a month and a half.

“It was considered one of the worst crashes in the history of the sport,” she says. “They said I’d never race again or do anything athletic. They said the probability of walking without a walker or cane was not likely.”

 

 

Now facing her toughest physical battle to date, she was determined to get back on the bike before long.

“I made a promise to myself that I didn’t care how long it took or the pain I was going through, I’m going to get back on that bike, and I’m going to race again, and that’s what I did.”

She explains that she slowly started doing laps around a high school track in her wheelchair, and working her way up to doing in on crutches until her body became strong again. In addition to the obvious physical feat of developing her body’s strength back, she was facing the mental battle of getting over the fear of the downhill descent which played a part in her fall.

“I even had a hard time descending in my car when I was able to drive, so that was the toughest part of the transition and getting back on the bike,” she says. “The flashbacks were so traumatic and when that happens, it doesn’t go away.”

Eventually she managed to get back on the bike and, after going into ultra-endurance racing, she won the women’s solo category in the 4,700-kilometre Race Across America in 2011.

Ten years later, after several years of retirement, Goldstein challenged herself to beat her own time. In 2021, at 52 years old, Goldstein made history as the first female solo cyclist to win the endurance race despite her age, having not ridden in a long time, the insulting comments from a competitor, and the “hardest conditions the race had ever had” due to the heat dome in the desert.

“When we talk about Race Across America, it an almost 5,000-kilometre race, so it’s no longer (only) physical,” says Goldstein. “It becomes mental, and women are strong mentally — we can take a lot of pain. So I would say that was one of the biggest victories of my life.”

Since then, she has set a new record for herself again, finishing the race in 2023 in 10 days, eight hours, and 54 minutes.

 

 

Goldstein used her 2021 Race Against America win as the narrative of her 2016 memoir No Limits, which is currently being turned into a documentary.

The athlete is also in training for the Trans American Bike Race taking place in June 2024. At 6,700-kilometres unsupported, Goldstein states it will be a “completely different challenge” than Race Across America, though, of course, it will again require that mental determination she’s been using her whole life.

Before the Trans American Bike Race, however, she’ll be making her first trip to Peterborough for her debut speaking engagement at INSPIRE’s International Women’s Day event to speak to the room about living life without limits.

“It’ll hopefully inspire and motivate people if they’ve been sitting on something for a long time to start doing it,” she says. “We put so many limitations on ourselves, especially with age. We’re really good at making excuses of why not to do things, but you’ve got to use that power to move forward.”

For updates about INSPIRE’s International Women’s Day event, visit inspirethewomensportraitproject.com and follow INSPIRE on Facebook and Instagram.