Good Sports: YOGA-TEACHING OLYMPIAN
If someone asked you whether a swimmer of Indian descent has ever won an Olympic medal, would the name “Pamela Leila Rai” roll off your tongue? Probably not, perhaps because she won the medal more than 30 years ago.
Rai, the first woman of Indian descent and first Indo-Canadian woman to win an Olympic medal, was inducted into the Delta Sports Hall of Fame in Delta, British Columbia, last month. Rai, 49, who owns and operates Silent Motion Yoga Vedanta Centre on Vancouver Island, Nanaimo, B.C., is already a member of the BC Sports Hall of Fame, the Swim BC Hall of Fame, and the University of Victoria Sports Hall of Fame.
A freestyle swimmer, she represented Canada from 1976 to 1987, and along with teammates Anne Ottenbrite, Reema Abdo and Michelle MacPherson, won a bronze medal in the 4x100-metre medley relay at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
During a visit to India, she became a certified Sivananda Yoga teacher, taking her teacher training course at the Sivananda Ashram in Netala, India, on the banks of the Ganges.
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