Lorne Loomer entered the University of British Columbia in 1954 and soon joined their national championship-winning rowing team. By 1956 he was a spare on their coxed eights crew, alongside Donald Arnold, Walter D’Hondt, and Archie MacKinnon. As part of their training, this quartet was sent to compete in the coxless fours event at the Canadian Olympic trials, where they surprisingly won the right to represent Canada at the 1956 Summer Games. At the Olympics they took gold in the coxless fours, nearly ten seconds ahead of the Americans. Their next stop was the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, where they earned gold as members of the eights crew coxed by Sohen Biln. Loomer was originally a member of the eights crew that would go on to win silver at the 1960 Summer Olympics, but was sent to assist Keith Donald in the coxless pairs instead, which led to alternate David Anderson taking his place. Donald and Loomer were eliminated in the opening round of the event and failed to qualify for the semifinals during the repêchage.
Loomer retired from active competition after the Games and went to the University of Victoria in 1963, where he founded and coached their rowing program. Holding degrees in pharmacy and international relations from UBC, he also had a career as a pharmacist that began in 1967, while an interest in painting led him to work as a teacher of watercolour painting at the Pearson College of the Pacific at the Summer School of Arts. Among his many honors, he has been inducted into Canada’s Sports (1957), the Canadian Olympic (1958), the British Columbia Sports (1966), and the University of British Columbia Sports (1993) Halls of Fame with his gold medal-winning crew, as well as the Great Victoria Sports (1993) and University of Victoria Vikes (2002) Halls of Fame individually.
Canada