Leslie Klein

Leslie Klein was an all-around athlete in high school at Concord-Carlisle Regional in Concord, Massachusetts, playing hockey (field), gymnastics, tennis, softball, swimming, and cross-country skiing. She attended Middlebury College where she competed in swimming and cross-country skiing, and majored in geology and biology. She later did graduate study in exercise physiology at the University of Kentucky.

Klein was unusual in that she competed both in flatwater and whitewater. She was on US national teams from 1975-84, competed at the Flatwater World Championships from 1977-83 and the Whitewater World Championships in 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1981. She made the ill-fated 1980 US Olympic team. At the Worlds she placed seventh in 1978 in K-2 and ninth in K-1, eighth in 1981 in K-4, ninth in 1982 in K-4, and seventh in 1983 K-4. She won a gold medal at the 1979 Whitewater Worlds in the team event. Her husband Jay Kearney made the 1980 US Olympic team in kayaking.