Of South Asian descent, Sohen Biln, nicknamed “Tommy”, was the coxswain for many of the University of British Columbia’s medal-earning eights crews in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Among his major international successes, he won gold at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, silver at the 1959 Pan American Games (with David Anderson, Glen Mervyn, and the non-Olympians Ian Beardmore, John Cartmel, John Madden, Dave Park, Peter Robbins, and Lawrence Stapleton), and silver again at the 1960 Summer Olympics (alongside Anderson, Mervyn, Donald Arnold, Walter D’Hondt, Nelson Kuhn, John Lecky, Archie MacKinnon, and Bill McKerlich). He also won silver in the coxed fours at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, with Arnold, D’Hondt, David Helliwell, and the non-Olympian Lawrence Stapleton. He retired from active competition after the Games and took up a career as a pharmacist. He has been inducted into the British Columbia (1977) and University of British Columbia (2012) Sports Halls of Fame with his silver medal-winning crew.
Canada