Rob Marland’s first competitive rowing experience was a far cry from his farewell to his sport.The first time he got in a boat to row in earnest was in his final year at Lorne Park Secondary School. He and his Lorne Park mates were competing in the 1981 Ontario high school boys’ Eight championships at the Henley course in St. Catharines. They never got to the finish line one of the Lorne Park crew fell out of the boat halfway through the course and that was that.

     In contrast, his farewell race stands out as the most memorable and by far the proudest of an illustrious competitive career that was dotted with plenty of exclamation marks. On a sun-drenched Spanish summer Sunday in 1992 when Canada first achieved world powerhouse status, Marland became the first Mississauga athlete to win a Summer Olympics gold medal as a key member of the champion men’s Eight in Barcelona. He remembers it well. “Being on the Olympic podium and hearing our national anthem was an unbelievable experience. How can you forget it? I had tears flowing from my eyes,” he says. What made his Olympic gold medal day even more memorable was that both his and his wife’s family were in the stands witnesses to the historic sports event. That Olympic race was the final stop in his competitive career. Rob called it quits after Barcelona, closing the book on seven years as member of the national rowing team. “The best thing that can be said is that there are so many experiences leading up to making that moment so valuable,” he says. “They enhance that final experience.”Sandwiched in between the first spill at St. Catharines and the last thrill in Barcelona is a career many athletes dream about but few ever experience.

     After taking up rowing in earnest while attending Trent University in Peterborough, Rob made quick progress.   Award winning photographer and rowing coach Fred Loek (he’s credited with guiding another Mississauga great, Silken Laumann, in her early career) considered Marland a “natural.”

     Just how “natural” first became evident in 1985 when Marland helped the Trent men’s Eight to gold medal in the Ontario university championships. At the Canadian Henley he also finished first with the Ontario men’s Eight, won gold in men’s Four and was chosen to the national “B” team.

     As a member of Mississauga’s Don Rowing Club, Rob tried his hand at Single Sculls and registered a significant triumph at the 1989 Canadian championships and the national team trials the following year when he also reached the “D” finals in the world championships. Domestically, he has added top Canadian laurels in men’s Pair (1990) to go with Henley gold in men’s Pairs and Eight (both in 1990).

In his Olympic Games debut in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988, he was member of the ninth-place Canadian Coxed Four crew. In world championships, he and his crew rowed to a silver medal in the men’s Eight in both 1990 and ’91 after their christening by fire in 1986 (eighth in the Coxed Pair) and finishing fourth in 1987 (Coxed Four).  Also in ‘87 while still at Trent, he was a member of the bronze medal winning Coxed Four at the World Universiade.

     Competing against the world’s best produced more medals – English Henley (gold in ’88), Holland’s Amsterdam International Regatta (gold in ’90), Duisburg International Regatta in Germany (gold in ’91), the famous Rotsee International Regatta in Switzerland (silver in 1990 and ’91), San Diego Crew Classic (bronze in ’90) and a tune-up to the Barcelona Olympic, the Essen International Regatta (silver in ’92). For their gold medal effort in Barcelona, Rob and his crew were inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1994. He’s also recipient of the Sports Federation of Canada achievement award. At home, Mississauga honored Rob by selecting him the city’s Male Athlete of the Year for 1992 and inducted him into the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.