Ed Leigh

Ed Leigh (born 15 July 1975) is a British sports presenter, snowboarder, and commentator.

Broadcasting career

Leigh presents the BBC2 show Ski Sunday during the winter and Red Bull X-Fighters ^[1] World Series for Dave alongside Rob Warner in the summer.

Leigh got his first regular working on Channel 4's RTS award winning series Freesports On 4 covering action sports events around the world and focused on British athletes. Leigh has built up a diverse portfolio of work ranging from Ed vs. Spencer for Sky 1 to commentating on both the summer and winter Olympics for the BBC. Having worked as editor of Whitelines Snowboard Magazine, Leigh's TV career started presenting Trailer Park on Turners CNX channel CNX, alongside Christian Stevenson, his long-time collaborator. The duo went on to present a series for the Extreme Sports Channel titled Legends of the Extreme.

After doing the voice over for the Extreme Sports Channel's 2004, he followed the Rally as a hitch hiker/presenter for 2005 and Gumball 2006: Around the world in 8 days.

In 2007, Leigh became co-presenter of the BBC's Ski Sunday series with Graham Bell after his commentary at the 2006 Winter Olympics helped bring the snowboarding to life: his memorable exclamation "Drama! Jacobellis is down!" at the comedic climax of the Women's Snowcross Final made his name.^[2] Leigh commentated on snowboarding events at the 2010 Winter Olympics alongside Stine Brun Kjeldaas.

He appeared on World Rally: Australia 2009 on Dave and in Autumn 2009 lent his voice to the O'Neill Cold Water Classic Series.

Leigh now co-presents both Ski Sunday and High Altitude, which ran for the winter of 2009 on BBC2, with Graham Bell.

During the 2012 Summer Olympics Ed commentated on Beach Volleyball for the BBC alongside Matt Chilton and also at the BMX event in the cycling.^[3]

Other appearances

Winner of the Official UK Air Guitar Championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Leigh was more commonly known at this time as 'Satan Whoppercock'

In spring 2009, Leigh appeared on My Life as an Animal on BBC Three where he lived with Dogs for a week.

Professional career

Previous to his broadcast career, Leigh had a diverse CV that included professional snowboarding, journalism, event management, cleaning mega yachts and windsurf instructing. However in 1997 after a chance meeting in London he centred his efforts on Laughing Gear, a commentary and cabaret company set up with good friend Christian Stevenson. An intricate knowledge of the action sports world and off-the-cuff comedy established them as a unique commodity in the events market.

Leigh started his snowboarding career working in Chalford based snowboard shop, Noahs Ark. After spending five years snowboarding in the resort of Val d'Isère a knee injury forced him to take a season off and he was offered a job as teaboy at White Lines snowboarding magazine, which he had been contributing to on a freelance basis. Six months later he was editor of the magazine which opened the doors to other media opportunities.^[4]

References