Vegan sports kid’s national title

The youngest featured athlete on the Great Vegan Athletes site scored another notable success this week.  Cody Elkins changed sports and competed in the US National Paddleball championships.

The 14 year old Californian has taken wins at the World Racquetball Championships in both Indoor and Outdoor events previously.  He also has numerous successes in Junior Olympics and State and National games.

Paddleball is a game with some similarities to racquetball, although it uses a paddle without strings instead of the larger racquet – and the ball is usually slower.

As one of 50 entrants, Cody played in the Junior 14 & under category.  The juniors played singles while the adult competition was doubles.

Cody finished the league format stage with straight wins and took the title to add to his successes.

Cody told us “Paddleball is more difficult because the paddle has less power than racquetball, making the ball go slower. So I use a strategy of keeping the player in the back of the court so the players have a difficult time hitting it all the way to the front wall.”

Vegan since infancy

Vegan since his whole family made the change when he was two, Cody has enthusiastically spread the word about a vegan lifestyle.  In 2015 he told us “Our family wants to be as healthy as possible and live a long time.  Our family of six went vegan for health reasons and to cause less suffering but as we learn more we are happy we are taking care of the environment too and saving water.”

Last year he won a schools table tennis tournament and Cody has held a black belt in karate since 2016.   He is already looking forward to his next competition – the Racquetball Jr. Olympics in June in Portland, Oregon.

Cody’s profile

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