Marion Beverly LAY

Marion Lay took up swimming at a young age and, living in the United States with her family, she had the option to try out for both the American and Canadian national teams. Originally ineligible for the Canadian squad because she was not a resident, this rule was waved and she was selected to represent Canada at the 1964 Summer Olympics, where she finished fifth, sixth, and seventh in the 100 metre freestyle event and the 4x100 metre freestyle and medley relays respectively. This was also the year that she earned her first of five consecutive Canadian titles in the 100 m freestyle. Her next stop was the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, where she captured gold in the 110 yard freestyle and the 4x110 yard freestyle relay (alongside Jane Hughes, Elaine Tanner, and the non-Olympian Louise Kennedy) and silver in the 4x110 yard medley relay (with Kennedy, Tanner, and the non-Olympian Donna Ross). At the 1967 Pan American Games she took silver in the 100 and 200 m freestyle events, as well as the 4x100 m freestyle relay (alongside Coughlan, Tanner, and the non-Olympian Sandra Smith). Her final major international competition was the 1968 Summer Olympics, where she won bronze in the 4x100 m freestyle relay with Coughlan, Tanner, and Marilyn Corson, placed fourth in the 100 m freestyle, and was eliminated in the opening round of the 200 metre freestyle event and the 4x100 m medley relay (alongside Tanner, Anne Walton, and Jeanne Warren). During her career she set one world record in the 110 yard freestyle event in 1967.

Lay, however, was far from done with sports. She earned a master’s degree in the sociology of sport from California State University, Hayward, and took up coaching and commentating for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She had bigger dreams, however, and in 1974 helped organize a conference on women and sport, the nation’s first. Since then she has been heavily involved in promoting equality for women in sport and inductions into the British Columbia (2005) and Canada’s (2012) Sports Halls of Fame are among the many honors she has received for her work.