Category Archives: Marnie in the News

Episode 114: Team Canada Chef de Mission Marnie McBean

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In early December I was interviewed by Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown, hosts of the podcast Olympic Fever. The conversation was a ton of fun… Here is what they posted

Welcome to Olympic Fever, the podcast for fans of the greatest sporting event in the world: The Olympic Games. Each week, hosts Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown explore the stories of the Olympics through its sports, athletes, officials, organizers, host cities, fans and more.

We often hear the title “chef de mission” mentioned during an Olympics, but what is it that a chef actually does? We get the scoop from Team Canada’s chef de mission to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Marnie McBean. 

Marnie is a multi-medal winning Canadian Olympic rower who competed at Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, winning 3 gold and 1 bronze. A back injury sidelined her while at Sydney 2000 and led to her retirement. Tokyo 2020 will be her 10th Olympics – she’s gone as an athlete, as a member of the media, and as part of Canada’s chef team. With so many Olympics under her belt, she definitely has some great stories!

You can follow Marnie on Twitter and Insta, and be sure to visit her website.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (Sorry I couldn’t figure out the embed code!

Some of our Team Olympic Fever members have been published recently. Congrats to MCamp for his article in Sport Business Daily and Dr. Micheal Warren for his book reviewin the Journal of Sport History and new Team NZ blog post.

Also, Team Olympic Fever aerialist Emily Cook has taken a job with Classroom Champs, and the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant are announcing an Olympic trials this weekend. 

The IOC Executive Board meeting took place this week, which means we have another chapter in the maranovela. The group made a lot of decisions together, and we’ve got the news on that.

There’s no new news in the Paris 2024 hotelnovela, but there is a new development about the frontrunner to host the surfing competition. This is good–if you can’t have another chapter in the hotelnovela, this development is definitely a good substitute. Keep this item in mind until….oh…..about September 2023.

Plus, we’ve got word on the 2030 and 2032 Olympic bid timeline.

Thanks, as always, to our TOFU sponsor PinCollector.com – it’s the best site to catalog your Olympic pin collection, buy, sell and trade! It’s free to join and transaction fees are low.

Through PinCollector, we’ve gotten our own Olympic Fever pin! Get your own by becoming a Patreon patron or donating $20 or more through Paypal. Visit our Support page for more details and get yours before they’re all gone!

We’d love to hear your thoughts! We’re at info@olymfever.com or 530-7-O-FEVER. You can also find us on Twitter and Insta or join in the conversation on our Facebook Group. And help us find more of our people–review the show on your favorite podcasting platform and share it with a friend.

Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!

Player’s Own Voice podcast: Marnie McBean on a mission

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Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis gets an informatiion packed visit with Canada’s new Chef de MIssion,

Rower, triple-gold medallist diving into new role for Tokyo 2020

CBC Sports · Posted: Oct 02, 2019 7:03 AM ET

Marnie McBean, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing, speaks after being named the Olympic chef de mission for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games during the Canada Day noon show on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on July 1. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

No Canadian has seen greater Olympic glory than Marnie McBean.

But the rowing legend says one of her most memorable moments came at the Sydney Games in 2000, where she was injured outside of competition.

The support she got from her fellow athletes and from Team Canada changed her outlook dramatically, and made the Olympic movement the enduring focus of Marnie McBean’s life.     

Canada’s chef de mission for the Tokyo Olympics comes into studio to share her understanding of Olympic sport culture with Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis. Beyond the individual insights she has picked up from years of mentoring, McBean has invested serious thought in the areas where the Olympics struggle. 

How do host cities justify the cost of building so much infrastructure? What is the work that still needs to be done to keep athletes safely away from steroid use? And are we any nearer to clarity in the shifting sands of gender and competition?

The chat raises more questions than answers, but the questions matter if sustainable Olympics are the goal.

Listen here

New Olympics boss Marnie McBean knows how to bring attitude. For 2020, she’s championing diversity

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For Marnie McBean, being named Canadian chef de mission for the 2020 Summer Olympics is the cherry on a career devoted to sports and mentoring of athletes, writes Rosie DiManno.

By Rosie DiManno Toronto Star Columnist Wed., July 3, 2019

STAR COLUMNISTS OPINION

At the Barcelona Olympics, as I recall, Marnie McBean had a Fan Boys Club of gaga reporters from Canada.

They were all in thrall to the beauteous and sassy rower from Toronto.

Of course, she could have broken every one of their necks with those mesomorphic, ball-busting, oar-driving thighs.

Twenty-seven years later — good golly, 27 years — McBean rolls her eyes when a scribbler reminds her of the gaga adulation. Suggests maybe the sports correspondents merely appreciated her way with a pungent quote. “I’ve never been able to check what comes out of my mouth. Hey, bring Marnie over.”

The female rowers on Team Canada were goddesses. And I hope McBean forgives me for saying so because the discussion at hand is actually how sexist coverage of women athletes has been over the decades.

“Silken was described as a Nordic Valkyrie with the thousand-watt smile.”

Another eye-roll. Silken Laumann, famous for training with men, showed her Iron Man chops by winning bronze at Barcelona in single sculls a mere 10 weeks after suffering horrific injury — fractured fibula — in a boat collision during training.

The conversation around sportswomen, the stereotypes and lazy metaphors, really began to change at those 1992 Games.

“Our group came through and it was super-cool to be reading these articles where they were talking about us being competitive and aggressive,” McBean recalls. “Because that wasn’t how women were covered in sports. We had muscles. It was still being questioned: What was feminine? Now I look at athletes and how proud they are of the physicality. I would say the Canadian extreme is Kallie Humphries.” Two-time Olympic bobsledding champion. “She just loves showing her body and her muscles and how strong she is.”

McBean, now 51, wryly remembers being issued a gender-ID card at the Olympics. At one time, only Princess Anne, an Olympic equestrienne, was permitted to forgo gender testing.

“The needle has moved.”

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