Michael WEST

Mike West had been swimming for fun since the age of seven, but did not take it up as a competitive sport until in 1977. Specializing in the backstroke, he made the Canadian national team in 1980, but did not participate in that year’s Summer Olympics, as Canada boycotted the Games. His first major international victory came at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, where he won the 100 metre backstroke and took bronze in the 200 metre version. He repeated his gold medal feat at the 1983 Summer Universiade and finished third in both the 100 and 200 m backstroke events at that year’s Pan American Games. His talents then took him to the 1984 Summer Olympics, where he captured bronze in the 100 m backstroke and earned silver in the 4x100 metre medley relay (alongside Victor Davis, Sandy Goss, and Tom Ponting). He also placed second in the B Final and tenth overall in the 200 m backstroke. He went on to win a pair of silver medals, in the 100 and 200 m backstroke events, at the 1985 Pan Pacific Games, before moving on to the 1986 Commonwealth Games, where he earned bronze in the 100 m and gold in the 4x100 m relay (with Baumann, David, Goss, Ponting, Mark Tewksbury, and the non-Olympians Claude Lamy and Darcy Wallingford). He left the national team after this tournament to concentrate on his studies at the University of Waterloo. He eventually earned a medical degree from Queen’s University and, as of 2013, works as a physician in Dundas, Ontario. He was made a member of the Ontario Aquatic Hall of Fame in 1995.