City woman named to B.C. Sports Hall of Fame

City woman named to B.C. Sports Hall of Fame
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Oct. 23, 2002

Norma Foster of Burnaby is among 30 female athletes, administrators and teams inducted to a new permanent exhibit at the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.
Foster, a sixth degree black belt and the only woman in the world to be recognized as an international referee and judge in karate, earned the honour on the basis of her work promoting the role of women in the sport.
Her induction into the hall comes almost exactly one year after she was named one of he inaugural inductees into the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame.
"I didn't set out to do this (win awards)," Foster said. "I simply wanted to become a judge in my favourite sport, and never realized the barriers that were going to be thrown up in front of me.
"It took me 12 years to become an international referee, and what drove was the fact that it was simply wrong. The prevailing attitude at the time was that women could not do the job."
Today, Foster devotes her efforts to advancing the role of women in the sport, and in helping karate become an official Olympic sport.
"I used to say once I became a referee, I'd retire, but karate is still not in the Olympics, so I still have more to do. I want to be there when karate becomes an Olympic sport."
In the exhibit, Foster is joined by a long list of B.C.'s most famous female sporting figures. Other inductees include Debbie Brill, Alison Sydor, Isabell Cavallin, and the Canadian under-19 women's soccer team captained by Burnaby's Christine Sinclair.