Alister Leat passed away

The bad news are coming from the European Open in Sofia. The judo family lost one of our international fighters, son, brother, friend and good opponent on the mat. 28-year-old Alister Leat, U66kg competitor of New Zeland is no longer with us. Read the message from the New Zeland Judo Federation President. R.I.P.

Hi everyone,

it is with great sadness that I give you the following news.

We have had three New Zealand players (Alister Leat, his brother Adrian and Ryan Dill-Russell) compete at Casablanca and in the past weekend in Sofia, Bulgaria. They were due to go to Paris next weekend.

They were in Europe to compete for WRL points and for training in Europe so that they could secure selection for the Commonwealth Games to be held later in the year.

Alister competed in the event in Sofia on the Saturday and watched his fellow team mates on the Sunday. Later on Sunday evening Alister was discovered to have committed suicide.

Judo New Zealand are now working with Alister’s family on getting his body, and the guys who have opted to stay and travel with him, back to New Zealand which is proving to be quite a bureaucratic and expensive process.

It is hoped he will be back in New Zealand within a week with a service to follow shortly after. We will announce a date once travel arrangements are confirmed.

At this stage the return of Ali to NZ and his funeral costs are estimated at around $30k. We have opened an account for Ali to assist his family with these costs . 

The account number is ASB 12-3035-0813603-01 for any one who wants to make a donation so we can help the family financially and help relieve some of their stress while they grieve for their son and brother.

The family is not in any state at present to receive people or respond to emails, phone calls or texts.

A message board has been set up for people to post messages of condolence and I will ensure these are passed on regularly to Ali’s family. 

The link is http://www.judonz.org/members/?pid=aleat

https://www.facebook.com/groups/570261316397234/

Kind regards

David Browne

President - Judo New Zealand