Grant Main joined the Canadian national rowing team in the early 1980s and first represented his country at the 1983 World Championships, where he finished eighth in the coxed eights event at the World Championships alongside Stephen Beatty, Dean Crawford, Brian McMahon, Kevin Neufeld, Jim Relle, Pat Turner, Tim Turner, and the non-Olympian Rob Gibson. For the 1984 Summer Olympics, the crew kept Crawford, Main, McMahon, Neufeld, and Pat Turner, added Mark Evans, Mike Evans, Blair Horn, and Paul Steele, and earned a gold medal, finishing just over 0.4 seconds ahead of the Americans. Main then took up the coxless fours, finishing fifth and fourth at the 1985 and 1986 World Championships respectively, before earning a second gold medal, this one at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, with Neufeld, Steele, and Pat Turner. These four rejoined the men’s eights for the 1987 World Championships and placed fifth alongside McMahon, Andy Crosby, Dave Ross, Don Telfer, and John Wallace. Ross and Turner were traded for Jason Dorland and Jamie Schaffer at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but could not repeat their gold medal-winning performance, ending up instead in sixth place. Main then retired from active competition and eventually joined the public service sector in British Columbia in the early 1990s. Among numerous other positions, he has served as the Deputy Minister of Healthy Living and Sport, Community, Sport, and Cultural Development, and Transportation and Infrastructure. A graduate in economics from the University of Victoria, he has been inducted, along with the rest of his gold medal-winning crew, into the British Columbia Sports (1985) and Canadian Olympic (2003) Halls of Fame.
Canada