The UBC Thunderbirds are the athletic teams that represent the University of British Columbia. In Canadian intercollegiate competition, the Thunderbirds are the most successful athletic program both regionally in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association, and nationally in U Sports, winning 116 national titles. UBC has won an additional 20 national titles competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics against collegiate competition from the United States and 40 national titles in sports that compete in independent competitions.
The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre is a LEED Silver certified indoor arena in Greater Vancouver, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. Located in the University Endowment Lands, it is just outside the city limits of Vancouver, British Columbia. The arena is home to the UBC Thunderbirds men's and women's ice hockey teams, and contains one international-size 61 m × 30 m ice rink.
Yohann Diniz is a French race walker. He is the current world-record holder for the 50 km race, with a time of 3:32:33, and for the 50,000 metres track walk, with a time of 3:35:27.
Valeriy Viktorovich Borchin is a race walker from Russia who won the 2008 Olympic gold medal and was World champion over the 20 km distance. His World Championship was retroactively stripped in 2015 due to doping.
Jared Tallent is an Australian race walker and Olympic gold medallist in the 50 km walk from London in 2012. He is a four-time Olympic medallist, three-time World Championship medallist and holds the current Olympic record in the 50 km walk.
The Shrum Bowl was a university rivalry game played between the gridiron football teams of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds and the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Red Leafs. The game was named after Gordon Shrum who was a professor and later a dean at UBC from 1925 to 1961 and served as the first chancellor of SFU from 1964 to 1968. It was a cross-town rivalry with UBC being located in the University Endowment Lands just west of Vancouver, British Columbia, and SFU located approximately 30 kilometres away in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Rachel Seaman is a Canadian race walker. She competed in the 20 kilometres walk event at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Iñaki Gomez Goroztieta is a Canadian retired race walker. He competed in the 20 kilometres walk event at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and finished in 13th place. More recently, he competed in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Moscow where he finished 8th place.
Cai Zelin is a Chinese male racewalker. He finished 4th at the 20 km walk during the 2012 London Olympics, and won the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He finished 5th at the 2015 World Championships in the 20 km race walk. In 2019, he competed in the men's 20 kilometres walk at the 2019 World Athletics Championships held in Doha, Qatar. He did not finish his race.
Caio Oliveira de Sena Bonfim is a Brazilian racewalker. In the 20 km walk, he was a bronze medalist at the 2017 and 2023 World Championships and finished 4th at the 2016 Olympic Games. His mother, Gianetti Bonfim, was also an international racewalker for Brazil.
Race walking events at the Summer Olympics have been contested over a variety of distances at the multi-sport event. There were three race walking events in the 2020 Summer Olympics: a men's and a women's 20 kilometres walk, and a men's 50 kilometres walk. The races were held in a final-only format.
Evan Dunfee is a Canadian race walker and Olympian. An Olympic and World medallist, Dunfee first set the Canadian record in the 50 kilometres race walk at the 2016 Summer Olympics, where he placed fourth. He went on to win bronze medals at the 2019 World Athletics Championships and the 2020 Summer Olympics, both of those the last time the 50 km was to be featured as an event.
Dane Alex Bird-Smith is an Australian racewalking athlete. He competes in the 20 kilometres race walk, and has a best of 1:19:28 hours for the distance, set in 2017. He competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he was the bronze medallist. Bird-Smith represented Australia at the World Championships in Athletics three times, and has appeared four times at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships/Cup.
Amanda Karlene Asay was a Canadian baseball and ice hockey player. She played on the Canada women's national baseball team from 2005 to 2021, and was its longest-serving member at the time of her death. She batted and threw right-handed, and played at catcher, first base, and starting pitcher.
The men's 20 kilometres walk at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 23 August.
Maria Bernard is a Canadian track and field athlete competing in the middle-distance events, predominantly the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Rhydian Cowley is an Australian race walker born in Glen Waverley, Victoria who specialises in the 50 kilometres race walk and 20 kilometres race walk. Cowley competed in the 2013 World Championships in Moscow and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. For both of his major championship competitions, Cowley qualified in the 20 kilometres race walk. He has also competed at a Summer Universiade, five World Race Walking Cups, and a World Junior Championships. In 2021, he competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo where he finished in 8th in the men's 50 kilometres walk with a new personal best time of 3:52.01 just 113 seconds behind the eventual winner Dawid Tomala of Poland.
The UBC Thunderbirds football team represents the University of British Columbia athletics teams in U Sports and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Thunderbirds program has won the CWUAA Hardy Trophy conference championship 17 times, which is third all-time among competing teams. On a national level, the team has won the Vanier Cup championship four times, in 1982, 1986, 1997 and, most recently, in 2015. The team has also lost twice in the title game, in 1978 and 1987. The Thunderbirds program has also yielded three Hec Crighton Trophy winners: Jordan Gagner in 1987, Mark Nohra in 1997, and, most recently, Billy Greene in 2011.
Valentina Trapletti is a female racewalker from Italy, who participated at three World championships and won seven national titles. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in 20 km walk.
Robert George Hindmarch was a Canadian educator, sports administrator and ice hockey coach. He was a multi-sport athlete at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as a student, and returned as a professor and its director of physical education. He and Father David Bauer established a permanent Canada men's national ice hockey team based at UBC in preparation for ice hockey at the 1964 Winter Olympics. Hindmarch later coached the UBC Thunderbirds men's ice hockey team for 214 wins in 12 seasons; they became one of the first Western Bloc sports teams to play a tour of games in China. He developed additional international sporting relationships for the Thunderbirds in South Korea and Japan, and served as vice-president of the Canadian Olympic Association for 16 years. Hindmarch was made a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia; and is inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
