1993 Summer Universiade, Buffalo: coxless four gold, singles sculls silver.

Rower Marnie McBean, who with Kathleen Heddle became the first Canadian to win three Summer Olympic golds, maintained a winning momentum in her career on the water by earning two medals at the 1993 Summer Universiade in Buffalo, New York.

By the time McBean got to that event she was already the proud, if somewhat shocked, owner of two Olympic gold medals from the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.

She had partnered Heddle - who died in January 2021 of cancer - in the coxless pair and both had been in the victorious Canadian eight.

In Buffalo, McBean competed in the single sculls and the coxless four.

In the sculls, she took silver in 8min 14.188sec behind Romania's Veronica Cochela, who won in 8:10.811, with bronze going to Poland's Winiewska in 8:31.457. 

At that point, Cochela had already won two Olympic silvers in the double scull, and silver and bronze in the quadruple sculls, and she went on to be a part of the eight that earned gold at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympics.

McBean got to the top of the podium in the coxless four, where Canada won in 6:40.680 from a Romanian crew containing Cochela, which clocked 6:42.670, and France, who finished in 6:56.423.

Three years later at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, McBean and Heddle showed their versatility by winning the double sculls gold and both were in the quadruple sculls crew that earned bronze.

During her career, McBean also earned a total of eight world medals before her retirement three weeks before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, where she was due to compete in the single sculls, due to two ruptured discs in her back.

At the World Championships, Heddle and McBean had won gold in both the pair and the eight in 1991, as well as double sculls silver in 1993 and gold in 1995. Both were part of the silver medal-winning quadruple sculls crew in the latter year.

"In Sydney [2000], when the chance to medal disappeared with a blown disc in my back, I learned more about myself, kindness and the Olympics, than I could otherwise have imagined," she said.

McBean was appointed as Canada's Chef de Mission for Tokyo 2020 in July 2019.