By the age of 14 Ken Lane was already involved in the sport that would bring him the most prestige in life, canoeing. As a member of Toronto, Ontario’s Balmy Beach Canoe Club he won a silver medal in the Canadian Doubles, 10,000 metres event at the 1952 Summer Olympics, but this was only one of many international medals for Lane in canoeing, fourteen of which were gold. His involvement in the sport reached beyond participation, as he managed the Canadian canoe team at the 1967 Pan American Games and the canoe and whitewater team at the 1972 Summer Olympics, in addition to serving as an official at the 1976 edition. In-between he founded Canoe Ontario in 1974. He also worked as the treasurer of the Western Ontario Division of the Canadian Canoe Association from 1945 through 2000. He continued to canoe into the 1990s, winning five Canadian Championships in the 60+ age category, and was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 2003. He won the R. Edgar Gilbert Award, the highest honor of the Canadian Canoe Association, as a builder, as well as the Queen’s Jubilee Award for his volunteer efforts.
Outside of canoeing he was also a skilled lawn tennis and squash player, having been introduced to the latter sport in the 1940s while attending the University of Toronto’s Victoria College. He served as president of the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club and won the Ontario singles squash championship in 1974, several Canadian masters championships, and medals at the World’s Masters Championships. He continued to play squash until the age of 85. Even after being diagnosed with cancer he continued to play bridge and golf. Career-wise, he worked with Sears Canada for 38 years until his 1984 retirement, although he continued to serve as part of the Sears Forum Group until a month before his death from leukemia in January 2010. His older brother Norman won a bronze medal in the Canadian Singles, 10,000 metres event at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Canada