Marc Lemieux

Marc Lemieux grew up in White Rock, British Columbia, and was an active swimmer in his youth alongside his brother Guy and two sisters, Denise and Alix. He was the son of Bernard “Barney” Lemieux, a prominent realtor who served as president of the Board of Trade in the 1940s and also as Registrar of Vital Statistics. The family moved from Vancouver to White Rock in the early 1940s.

Lemieux attended the University of British Columbia where he was a member of the rowing team, serving as the captain of the 1963 gold medal-winning eights squad at the Pan American Games in São Paulo, Brazil. The UBC team later represented Canada at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, where they finished third in the B final. In that same year, he was awarded UBC’s Bobby Gaul Memorial Trophy, as the “graduating male athlete who best combines the qualities of leadership and sportsmanship”, alongside basketball player Dave Way. He later moved with his wife to the United States, living in Colorado and North Carolina.