Bill Leach attended U Cal Irvine, graduating in 1968, where he competed in swimming and water polo. He was on the US national water polo team from 1968-70. Leach took up canoeing in 1970, paddling with the Rusty Pelican Club, and by 1976 had won five US titles in K-1 and K-2 races. He competed at the North American Championships in 1973-75 and the World Championships in 1974. Bill Leach was a schoolteacher in the mid-1970s in Corona del Mar, California, when he met Julie Jones, who would later become his wife. Julie Leach also competed in kayaking at the 1976 Olympics and later won the 1982 Hawai’i Ironman Triathlon.
United States