Marilyn Bell - Awards and Recognition

Awards and Recognition

In 1954, Bell was named the Canadian Newsmaker of the Year by the Canadian Press, awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's athlete of the year and awarded the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canadian female athlete of the year. Bell was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1958. In 1993 she entered the Canadian Swimming Hall of Fame and was named one of Canada's top athletes of the century. In 2002, Bell (now Marilyn Bell Di Lascio) was presented with the Order of Ontario.

The national Historic Sites and Monuments Board designated Bell's crossing of the lake a National Historic Event in 2005, and a federal plaque was erected in 2008 near the site of her landfall. Another plaque is mounted on the base of a statue of a lion along Lake Shore Boulevard by the Government of Ontario Building of the CNE.

Parkland near the location where Bell arrived is now named Marilyn Bell Park. In 2009, the Lakeshore Swimming Club of Toronto held the first annual Marilyn Bell Swim Classic, a meet sanctioned by Swim Ontario. In 2010, a ferry boat to serve the Toronto Island Airport was named the Marilyn Bell 1. The name was chosen as the top name in a contest held by the Toronto Port Authority.

The story of Bell's historic swim was told in the 2001 made-for-TV film Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story with Caroline Dhavernas portraying Marilyn Bell.