Masters Spotlight

Leading up to the 2026-2027 season, we are highlighting some of the outstanding people that we have in our Ontario Masters Swimming Community.

By David Grossman

Life can be a blur at times.

If you need some elaboration, try find time to have a chat with Lynn Marshall.

While many know of this astute woman as the university professor or doctor of philosophy, another claim to fame just might be her history and memoirs of shattering more than 60 world records.

A fascinating individual with a plethora of compelling stories, Marshall may also explain how she found the Fountain of Youth – something historians will note that Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon searched for years and was unsuccessful.

Marshall is a swimmer. At age 65, she’s in far greater physical shape than your average athlete. As an acclaimed and distinguished person, she has kept fit and busy for many years. When relating to aquatics, you’ll spot her numerous achievements in the category of Masters swimming.

“I’m having too much fun swimming – and it keeps me young,” said Marshall, whose exuberant personality was evident in our telephone conversation. “I’m always around younger people so you forget about your age and look for ways to make others better.”

A gift of the gifted, Marshall has been ranked No. 1 in the world at least 20 times and the archives have her listed as the owner of more than 30 Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) world records. FINA is the formal title for the group that monitors international water sports.

While there have been numerous personal milestones and exceptional performances, including more than 250 Canadian age-group records, Marshall has been one dedicated and energetic woman. More like the lightning rod of inspiration for many adults.

In addition to educating students in software engineering at Ottawa’s Carleton University, she finds time to coach the sport to those in the Masters category and manages the university’s varsity swim team.

Marshall calls Canada’s capital her home but was born in Skelwith Bridge, a small village about a five-hour drive northeast of London, England. She moved, with her family to Winnipeg at the age of six.

That’s where her initiation to swimming started. Her parents insisted on their daughter taking swim lessons so she could have fun at the family cottage. Marshall was not a big fan of training sessions – a requirement of a competitive swimmer when she joined the Manitoba Marlins Swim Club.

For 10 years, she competed as a freestyle swimmer at the intercollegiate level. That involved racing at the University of Waterloo (winning 26 Canadian and Ontario medals), the University of Manchester while on a Commonwealth Scholarship, and Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, where she earned several more degrees.

It was at the age of 25, that Marshall earned her first Masters World record and won gold medals at the National swim championships. That happened in Leeds – a city known as the birthplace of cinema and the home of the first-ever Marks & Spencer store.

While the benefits of a full body workout in water are what Marshall calls vital and essential, take note of the requirements to join her Masters session at Carleton. Individuals need to swim one kilometre in an hour and be quite knowledgeable while showing a variety of strokes. Otherwise, she advises them to pursue private lessons.

More than 30 years ago, things dramatically changed for Marshall.

Her swimming career almost came to an end in 1993. It was in a traffic accident, hit by a car, which is where she suffered what hospital emergency doctors had thought was a potentially life-changing injury.

Marshall sustained a C1vertebra fracture – the top bone of the spine that directly supports the skull, and is critical to head movement and rotation. At the time, she was leading the cycling section of her first triathlon near Kingston, Ont.

“It was a struggle, the neck injury changed things, but I knew life goes on,” said Marshall, whose enthusiasm, passion and determination to return to swimming was a stimulus for success.

Talk about perseverance. Breaking her neck – and she came back stronger.

For Marshall, the words resilience, dominance and success have been key in her life.

Every year, since the mid 1980’s, Marshall has kept her ranking among the top10 Masters swimmers in the world and is one of the youngest in the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame where she was inducted in 2011.

In more than half a century of competitive swimming, Marshall has held Masters world records in nine different age categories. Career highlights have been many including finishing first overall in a five kilometres Open Water race at the 1992 World Masters Championships.

Her time was eight seconds ahead of the top male finisher.

“I remember that race – it has been one of my highlights,” said Marshall. “A victory like that can have a profound effect on anyone.”

Again, as a Masters swimmer, she dominated the Ontario Open-Water championships for 18 years.

For Marshall, whose life as a coach the past 26 years has been rewarding, let’s not forget the incredible efforts in the water. She might very well be the runaway best Canadian Masters swimmer of all time.

Retirement, as a swimmer and coach, is nowhere in sight.

2026 has been a struggle. In February, Marshall ruptured her bicep tendon in the middle of a race in Montreal. Weeks of rehabilitation. Then came a diagnosis in June she will never forget. A lump turned out to be breast cancer requiring surgery.

“My life has been on hold since June – when I learned of my test results and via email,” said Marshall. “Swimming has done wonders for me, and I look forward, in time, to picking up where I left off.”

An American singer and songwriter, Tori Amos, was once quoted saying “Healing takes courage, and we all have courage – even if we have to dig a little to find it.”

David Grossman is a veteran multi award-winning Journalist and Broadcaster with some of Canada’s major media, including the Toronto Star and SPORTSNET 590 THE FAN, and a Public Relations professional for 50+ years in Canadian sports and Government relations. In 2026, he was inducted to the Toronto Sports Hall of Honour with a Lifetime Achievement Award.