4x4 Pauline Leclef

I started playing hockey when I was about 5 years old. This was at Herakles Hockey Club in Lier, Belgium. Nobody in my family actually played hockey, so it was thanks to friends of my parents that I ended up here. They asked if I wanted to try a hockey training with their daughters... and obviously since then I fell in love with the sport and never stopped playing it. I even dreamed of participating in Olympic Games as a hockey player since I was 8 years old! These days I don’t play for Herakles anymore, since a few years I play for Braxgata hockey club in Boom. I am the second one starting from the right by the way.

This is a picture of my family during one of my favourite trips, Thailand! I have two brothers, both younger than me, even if you wouldn’t say that. Yeah, I hear it all the time: so are you the youngest sister? No guys, I’m the oldest one! And then you have my parents, 28 years of marriage and counting... Which I think is something to be very proud of!

This picture is quit a special story. This is a picture of me and my dog, her name is Nala. Not so special you’d think... however, I adopted this cutie after we didn’t qualify for Tokyo 2020. We lost our Olympic Qualifier against China with shoot-outs. And I was so devastated that my biggest dream suddenly fell apart in 5 minutes that I didn’t really know what to do to get over it. After a while, I came up with the idea that a furry friend could help to comfort me. So I decided to adopt this rescue dog and since then we are buddies for life!

This is a picture of me and one of my best friends. I chose this picture because it sums up a lot of what I like to do when I’m not on the hockey field or behind study books. I love to spend time with my friends when I can, it’s super important to me and it also just gives me energy. I also really like to have interesting conversations with people about all kinds of stuff, yeah I like to talk... The third thing you see on the picture are the coconuts, it refers to the big food lover I am! I just really love good food and it makes me genuinely happy! And the last hint about myself on the picture is the beautiful landscape. When I go on holidays, I love to discover nature, way more then I like visiting cities. Thus this picture says a lot about me in my free time.