Patricia SMITH

After a short swimming career at the national level, Tricia Smith became involved in rowing at the age of 16 and quickly became a star on the Canadian scene, winning five national championships between 1974 and 1982. She made her international debut at the 1976 Summer Olympics, where she placed fifth in the coxless pairs with Betty Craig, and then spent the next three years as a member of a coxed eights crew, finishing third, third, and fifth at the World Championships from 1977 through 1979. She returned to the coxless pairs, and Craig, in 1980 and was selected for that year’s Summer Olympics, but stayed home after Canada joined the boycott of those Games. Undeterred, the duo earned silver, bronze, and bronze at the next three editions of the World Championships and then took their talents to the 1984 Summer Olympics, where they won silver behind Rodica Arba-Puşcatu and Elena Oprea-Horvat of Romania.

Craig left active competition after the Games and Smith joined a coxed fours crew that took bronze medals at the 1985 and 1986 World Championships. She also won the event at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, alongside Christine Clarke, Lesley Thompson-Willie, Jane Tregunno, and Jennifer Walinga. In 1987 Craig came out of retirement and the duo won the Canadian Championships once more. After an eighth-place finish at that year’s World Championships, however, Craig bowed out again and Smith returned to the coxed fours, in which she placed seventh at the 1988 Summer Olympics (with Thompson-Willie, Tregunno, Walinga, and Heather Clarke).

Smith retired after the Games and, having earned a law degree from the University of British Columbia in 1985, became a practicing attorney. Her affiliation with the sports world, however, did not end. After many years with UBC’s Athletic Committee and the International Federation of Rowing Associations, she was selected for the Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) executive board in 2005, having been involved with them since 1980. In 2007 she served as the Chef de Mission for Canada’s delegation to the Pan American Games and became a vice-president of the COC in 2009. She has also erved on the board of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport and, in 2016, became the head of the Canadian Olympic Committee. With her predecessor, Marcel Aubut, having resigned following complaints of sexual harassment, Smith declared her intent to reform the Committee’s institutional culture. Being named as a Member of the Order of Canada (2010) and the Order of British Columbia (2012), an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UBC (2001), and induction into the British Columbia Sports (1992), the University of British Columbia Sports (1994), and Canadian Olympic (2000) Halls of Fame are among her many honors. She also remains a partner at Barnes Craig & Associates in Vancouver. In June 2016, Smith was invited to become a member of the IOC.