Five of the nine team members went on to win a bronze medal for Canada at the ’78 world championships in New Zealand. Team members included coxswain Barbara Mutch, stroke Tricia Smith and rowers Ina De Lure, Kim Gordon, Kelly Jacklin, Christine Neuland, Katie Burke, Lorna Schultz and Joy Fera. The coach was Pat Sweeney.

Team members included coxswain Barbara Mutch, stroke Tricia Smith and rowers
Ina De Lure, Kim Gordon, Kelly Jacklin, Christine Neuland, Katie Burke, Lorna Schultz and Joy Fera.
The coach was Pat Sweeney.

It was 1979 and two women rowers were training on Burnaby Lake. Their goal was to compete in events like the U.S. championships that were to be held in Oakridge, Tenn., but the duo didn’t have the funds to go.

Then one day their coach surprised them with tickets to Tennessee where they won a gold and a silver. The coach refused to say who paid for the trip.

Their benefactor remained a secret for more than 30 years until one of Glen Smith’s friends told them Smith had been watching them train and decided to anonymously pay for the duo’s trip. Smith was a member of the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds eights squad that upset England at the 1954 British Commonwealth Games to win a gold medal for Canada. In the early 1960s,

Dr. Glen Smith was a founding member of the Burnaby Lake Rowing Club. After moving to Burnaby in 1985, he became a club board member and didn’t leave until 2011. As a national umpire he officiated at hundreds of regattas for more than 35 years.

Smith also served as a team physician for the Canadian under-23 rowing squad at the 1981 world championships in Vienna.

Dr. Hugh Fisher began serious kayak training on Burnaby Lake, near his home, in 1974.

Fisher parlayed that into an Olympic gold medal with partner Alwyn Morris at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in a world record time of 3:24.22 in the K-2 1,000 metres. The pair also teamed up to win the bronze medal in the 500-m kayak final. Earlier,

Fisher and Morris won a silver medal in the 1,000-m at the 1982 world championships and a bronze at the worlds in the 500-m in ’83.

He was a Canadian champion 22 times and also a four-time world outrigger canoe racing champion.

Fisher is still actively racing and coaching. He won 10 gold medals and four silvers at the 2005 World Masters Games. He was fourth in solo kayak at the 2007 world masters championships. In 1985. he was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.

Richard (Dick) McClure has been the “Boatman at Burnaby Lake” for almost 30 years.

The former silver medal-winning rower at the 1956 Olympic Games, also has 25 years of coaching rowing on his resume, which includes a bronze medal for national men’s team at the ’84 Olympics and a fifth in the earlier world championships.

A Level IV NCCP coach, McClure has worked with a host of Olympic medal winners. He was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.