A former Canadian bodybuilding champion from New Brunswick was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in Toronto this past weekend.
Ti-Jean LeBlanc, who grew up underweight and sickly as a teen, went on to become Mr. Canada in 1978, 1979, 1982 and 1985.
“I started because I was frail. I was always sick and the doctor had told my parents that I needed to gain some weight,” LeBlanc said.
At only five-foot-four and weighing less than 100 pounds in Grade 10, LeBlanc remembers getting relentlessly teased in school.
READ: New Brunswick teen with autism overcomes challenges to earn Taekwondo black belt
“They used to tell me I was at the wrong school. They used to tell me that junior high is across the street,” he recalls.
It wouldn’t take long to silence his critics after his father bought him his first set of weights at the age of 16.
Four years later, he too home his first trophy in competition.
“I was bitten. it was the first trophy I ever won in my life and I just fell in love with the sport,” he said.
Now he has an attic full of trophies.
He’s won Mr. Canada four times and even though he’s retired from competition, he continues to pump iron five days a week.
“He is 63 now and he continues to try and to beat himself every day, to try to beat his records,” his wife Heather said.
This past weekend in Toronto, Ti-Jean received a lifetime achievement award from the IFBB Pro League and Canada Physique Alliance.
WATCH: Better Winnipeg: 66-year-old man with Parkinsons aims for bodybuilding competition
“I was very humbled by the fact that they chose me out of all the athletes in Canada,” he said.
But there’s one recognition that has eluded LeBLanc for 17 years: he hasn’t been inducted into the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame.
“I was nominated several times but to no avail,” he said.
Both he and his wife say that’s a shame, and they hope the honour will come one day.
With reporting from Shelley Steeves