Lori Melien began swimming at nine years-old with Brampton, Ontario’s COBRA Swim Club and, by the age of 13, she had become a member of both the Ajax Aquatic Club and the Canadian national team. Her first major international tournament was the 1985 Pan Pacific Championships and, although failing to make the delegation to the 1986 Commonwealth Games, also attended the 1986 World and the 1987 Pan Pacific Championships. In the latter she won silver in the 4x100 metres medley relay, alongside Mojca Cater, Allison Higson, and Jane Kerr. Her next stop was the 1988 Summer Olympics where she, with the assistance of Higson, Kerr, Keltie Duggan, Patricia Noall, and Andrea Nugent, won a bronze medal in the 4x100 m relay. Melien also finished 12th and 19th in the 100 and 200 metres breaststroke events respectively. After a third appearance at the Pan Pacific Championships in 1989, she competed at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, where she won a silver medal in the 4x100 m relay alongside Duggan, Noall, and Nancy Sweetnam. As a student at the University of Calgary, she competed in her final major international tournament in 1993, the Summer Universiade, where she won a silver medal in the 4x100 m relay with Noall and the non-Olympians Andrea Papamandjaris and Patricia Levesque. After graduating with a degree in community rehabilitation, she worked as a swimming coach, personal aide, and brain injury researcher. She was inducted into the Ontario Aquatic Hall of Fame in 2003.
Canada